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TRACTS OF CYPRIAN, 

BISHOP OF CARTHAGE. 

IN TWO PARTS 

PART I. 

CONTAINING 

A CONSOLATORY EPISTLE ADDRESSED TO THE CHURCH 
OF CARTHAGE DURING A SEASON OF PESTILENCE, 

AND 

A LETTER TO THE GOVERNOR, DEMETRIAN, ON THE 
CAUSES OF NATIONAL AFFLICTION. 



PART II. 

CONTAINING 

SHORT TREATISES, DOCTRINAL AND PRACTICAL. 



"Whoever feels a desire to serve God in the most arduous and the most 
important of all professions, may profitably, — next after the study of the 
Sacred Oracles, — give days and nights to Cyprian's writings." 

MlLNER. ^ 



ABRIDGED FROM MARSHALL'S TRANSLATION, 
BY 

A MASTER OF ARTS OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CAMBRIDGE. 



Hontrmt : 

PRINTED FOR F. WESTLEY AND A. H. DAVIS, 

AND SOLD BY ALL BOOKSELLERS. 



1832. 



AN EXTRACT 



FROM MILNER'S REVIEW OF THE CHARACTER AND 
WRITINGS OF CYPRIAN. 

" The affairs of Cyprian detain us long, because his 
eloquent pen continues to attract us ; and because we would 
not lose an able and a faithful guide, till we are compelled 
to leave him. Probably there were many before his time 
whose christian actions would have equally deserved to be 
commemorated : But the materials of information fail us : 
The fine compositions of this Bishop are still, however, a 
capital source of historical instruction. 

" Cyprian was intended for very great and important 
services in the Church, and those of an active nature, and 
attended with an almost uninterrupted series of sufferings ; 
such as no man could perform to the glory of God, but 
one, who knew assuredly the ground on which he stood, by 
a strong work of the divine Spirit on his soul. His recep- 
tion of Christianity was not the effect of mere reasoning or 
speculation. It was not carried on in a scholastic or philo- 
sophical manner, but may truly be said to have been 
" in demonstration of the Spirit and of power. 1 "' He felt 
the doctrines of the Gospel, namely, the grace of God ; 
forgiveness of sins by Jesus Christ ; and the influence of 
the Holy Ghost, — powerful, exuberant, and victorious, 
and his soul was brought into the love of God, tempered 
ever with humility and godly fear. 

" In every fundamental principle he speaks as the oracles 
of God. His Tract on Patience, as a practical performance, 
and that on the Lord's Prayer, as a doctrinal one, deserve 



iv 



the highest praise — and his pastoral exhortations, where 
they were received, left effects of unadulterated piety, 
through the divine influence that attended them. The 
calamity of the Plague gave him an opportunity of im- 
pressing on the minds of his people what in truth had been 
the ruling object of his own life since his conversion, 
namely — a warm and active regard for the blessings of 
immortality, joined with a holy indifference for things 
below. In his letter to Demetrian, he preaches justification, 
by faith only, with an affectionate spirit and great clearness 
of doctrine, he appeals to the conscience as affording full 
proof of guilt before God, and exhibits, in lively colours, 
the all-important scenes of the last judgment. A truly 
regenerated person will not only relish his compositions, 
but also will not fail to be affected with a generous glow of 
the purest godliness upon reading them with care and 
attention. 

44 As a Christian Bishop scarcely any age has seen his 
superior — in activity, disinterestedness, and steady atten- 
tion to discipline. He was equally remote from the extremes 
of negligent remissness, and impracticable severity ; and he 
possessed a charity and a patience unwearied, and ever 
consistent. He may safely be recommended as a model to 
all pastors, and particularly to those of rank and dignity 
throughout Christendom. Whoever feels a desire to serve 
God in the most arduous and the most important of all 
professions, may profitably, — next after the study of the 
sacred oracles, — give days and nights to Cyprian's writings." 



CONTENTS OF THE SECTIONS. 



EPISTLE TO THE CHURCH OF CARTHAGE. 

SECTION. PAGE. 

1. That it is of great consequence in afflictions to consider that they are 

foretold to us 1 

2. That afflictions argue the kingdom of God to be near 3 

3. That no security nor lasting rest is to be expected before death 5 

4. That our great aversion to death proceeds from want of faith 7 

5. That it was an impertinent complaint which Christians made of their 

suffering in common with the Gentiles 9 

6. That Job and other good men are as remarkable for their afflictions as 

for their piety i r 10 

7. That afflictions of all sorts serve to the proof of Christian fortitude. ... 12 

8. That how formidable soever death may be to heathens, it should by no 

means be so to Christians 14 

9. Several advantages recounted as attending this dispensation 16 

10. That this distemper should not be dreaded under the pretence of its 

preventing any one's martyrdom 17 

11. What we should principally regard is composing ourselves to do or 

suffer the will of God 18 

12. A remarkable account of the death of a certain Bishop 19 

13. That to be afraid of death is to betray our faith and hope 20 

14 It is a very just foundation of joy to a Christian, that death shall 

associate him with Christ, and deliver him from persecution 22 

15. Especially since now at the end of the world many calamities hover 

over it 23 

16. That we should always bear in mind our baptismal vow, and that state 

of things which we profess to aspire after 24 

LETTER TO DEMETR1AN. 

1. The reason of the author's former silence, and of his present writing.. 27 

2. That national sin is the cause of national punishment 28 

3. That men are unreasonable in their expectations of having all things 

answer their wishes, when they will not acknowledge God who 
has all things at his disposal 30 

4. Our author appeals to the conscience of Demetrian. 33 

5. That 'tis the height of madness to worship idols, and provoke the living 

God 37 

6. That Christians bear with the injustice of their persecutors, because 

they are secure that God will avenge their quarrel 39 

7. That the evils which befal in common, the faithful and the unbelieving, 

are much more heavy upon the unbelieving 40 



vi 

SECTION. PAGE. 

8. That national judgments should lead to repentance towards God and 

faith in our Lord Jesus Christ 44 

9. That we can give our enemies no better proof of our charity, than by 

exhorting them to repentance 46 

10. That after this life there will be no room for repentance 47 

ON THE UNITY OF THE CHURCH. 

1. That with christian simplicity, prudence and obedience should be joined 52 

2. That Christians should be aware of the devices of Satan 54 

3. That heresies owe their rise to an ignorance of the Scripture 56 

4. He makes a shipwreck of the faith who departs from the unity of the 

true Church of Christ 57 

5. Out of the Church of Christ there is no salvation 60 

6. That the coat of Christ was not to be rent nor divided. . . . 61 

7. Much less his body, the Church 62 

8. That heresy discovers the secret naughtiness of a cankered heart, and 

approves the constancy and truth of a good Christian 63 

9. A description given of heretics 65 

10. That the promise, made by Christ, of vouchsafing his presence to a 

few, was made to them upon the supposition of their being gathered 
together, not separated from each other 65 

11. That martyrdom itself cannot atone for the guilt of schism 68 

12. That he is a Christian in name only who does not improve and cultivate 

brotherly love 70 

13. It was foretold by the apostles that schisms were to arise in the church 72 

14. That the invaders of the priesthood bave had always the vengeance of 

God attending them 74 

15. That it is no wonder if confessors themselves be sometimes betrayed 

into sin 75 

16. That the fall of some confessors does not lessen the glory of the rest. . 78 

17. That all intercourse with schismatics is to be avoided 79 

18. That the state of the Church is at this time declining 81 

ON THE LORD'S PRAYER. 

1. The praises of gospel precepts 84 

2. That the Father will hear those who ask in his Son's name 85 

3. That he who prays should do it with reverence and godly fear 86 

4. That Christians should use a prayer in common, which should suit the 

occasions and wants of others, as well as their own in particular. „ 89 

5. That prayer begins most auspiciously with the acknowledgment of God 

as our Father 91 



vii 

SECTION. PAGE. 

6. Upon the first petition, that the name of God may be hallowed 93 

7. That his kingdom may come 95 

8. That his will may be done in earth as it is in heaven 96 

9. In what the will of God consists 97 

10. That it must be performed both with our bodies and our souls 98 

11. That in the petition, " Give us this day our daily bread," the mystical 

bread of the holy eucharist may be alluded to 100 

12. That our daily food is likewise comprised in this petition 101 

13. That God would forgive us our debts 104 

14. That our pardon from God is suspended upon the condition of our 

granting it to our brethren 105 

15 We farther desire, not to be led into temptation 108 

16. Finally we ask of God that he would deliver us from evil 110 

17. That our Lord hath taught us to pray as well by example as by precept 111 

18. That attention of mind is necessary in prayer 112 

19. That alms are to be joined with prayer 113 

20. The solemn hours of prayer „ . .115 



ON THE DUTY OF CHRISTIAN PATIENCE. 

1. That there can be no true wisdom without patience 118 

2. That the virtue of patience is common to us with God 120 

3. That the precepts of the gospel do, in a very particular manner, 

recommend patience 123 

4. That our Lord exemplified in practice the patience which he recom- 

mended J)y precept 124 

5. That the patriarchs and prophets all have trod the game path of patience 127 

6. The advantage of patience illustrated from our being born to labour 

and trouble 129 

7. That Christians, who wage a perpetual war against the devil, have a 

peculiar occasion for this virtue 130 

8. That the christian religion requires our faith and hope, which must 

have patience to support them 131 

9. That patience not only confers upon us many great advantages, but 

secures us from many evils 132 

10. That all virtues are preserved and do subsist by patience 134 

11. That all good men have been tried by this test 136 

12. The advantages of patience appear upon the comparison with its 

contrary fault 137 

13. That impatience produces heretics in the church 138 

14. That patience is a very comprehensive virtue 139 

15. That the consideration of a future judgment is a great persuasive to 

this duty 140 

16. That he who is so much in haste to take vengeance, should consider 

that God is not himself avenged , 144 



viii 



ON EMULATION AND ENVY. 

1. That envy is really the greater evil for being esteemed a little one. . . .146 

2. That emulation and envy are to be avoided 148 

3. Envy traced to its origin 149 

4. That we may perceive by the examples of such as have been undone 

through envy, that it is not a single, but a complicated evil 151 

5. That envy always punishes and torments the person who is guilty of it 152 

6. That to cut off all occasion of envy our Saviour pronounced that the 

least should be greatest 155 

7. That it was not without its meaning, that Christ called his disciples 

sheep 157 

8. That emulation and envy should be mortified as being in a most par- 

ticular manner the works of the flesh 159 

9. That in regard to the command of their heavenly Father, and to the 

reward laid up in store for them, Christians should cultivate peace 
and charity 162 



ON THE CASE OF THE LAPSED. 
1. A pious congratulation of our author's to the church of Christ, upon 



the restoration of peace and liberty 165 

2. That the case of the lapsed was a very sad one 167 

3. That the corruption of manners among Christians was the cause of 

those calamities befalling them 168 

4. That therefore their lapse was utterly inexcusable 170 

5. That it is the greatest cruelty to soothe these men in their sin 172 

6. That none but God can forgive sins 175 

7. That the vengeance of God is denounced against the lapsed 177 

8. What sort of life becomes penitents 179 



9. That the penitent's humiliation should vie with the magnitude of his sin 181 



ON THE GRACE OF GOD. 

1. A description of Cyprian's state of mind both before and after 

conversion - 183 

2. A general representation of the world as lying in wickedness 187 

3. The blessedness of that rest which remains for the people of God . . . .190 



A CONSOLATORY EPISTLE TO THE CHURCH 
OF CARTHAGE. 

During the short reign of the Emperor Gallus, a dreadful 
Pestilence broke out in Africa, which made great 
havock among all ranks of men, and frequently swept 
away whole families. The Pagans were alarmed 
beyond measure — they neglected the burial of the 
dead through fear— and the bodies of many lay in the 
streets of Carthage. The Christians also were cast 
down with over-much sorrow ; for the Pestilence and 
Famine, which prolonged the trial of their faith and 
patience, were ascribed to the Authors of the new 
religion, and were consequently made the ground of 
renewed and cruel persecution. The eloquent voice 
of Cyprian, on this occasion, roused the courage and 
alacrity of his people. The Christians ranked them- 
selves into classes for the purpose of relieving the 
public distress. The rich contributed largely of their 
substance, and the poor gave their labour with extreme 
hazard of their lives. The Pagans saw with astonish- 
ment the effects of the love of God in Christ ; and 
had a salutary opportunity of contrasting these effects 
with their own inhumanity and selfishness. 

Cyprian to the Brethren at Carthage 
sendeth greeting. 

1. I am very sensible, my beloved brethren, 
that many of you are so well fortified, by the 
power of your faith and hope, and your religious 
affiance in God, that the present mortality is not 

u 



able to make upon you any disadvantageous im- 
pressions ; whilst these trials of your christian 
courage do rather approve than overthrow it ; and 
all the rude shocks which you receive from a 
boisterous world, rebound from your minds, as 
the waves do from a rock, without impairing its 
firmness : yet, though this be generally, and for 
the most part true of you, I cannot but observe 
that some of my flock, either through weakness of 
mind, or want of faith, or an attachment to the 
pleasures of life, or the delicacy of their sex, or 
(which is more than all the rest) through some 
misapprehensions concerning the great truths of 
the gospel, are shocked with this great calamity, 
and do not exert themselves with that spirit and 
constancy which might so reasonably be expected 
from their principles and professions ; and there- 
fore, upon this view of the case, I thought it 
incumbent upon me to say somewhat to it, and to 
employ my best endeavours upon rousing their 
dormant courage, and their drooping spirits, by 
exhortations and encouragements taken from the 
book of God ; that so the man who hath devoted 
himself to the service of God and Christ, may be 
taught to behave as becomes such an honourable 
relation : For he who serves in the christian 
warfare, and hath entered his name upon the roll 
of our head and captain, Christ Jesus, should 
consider with himself, my beloved brethren, what 
obligations he is thence engaged in, and how all 



his thoughts and affections should be taken off 
from this world and fixed upon another : and 
therefore no storms nor tempests which he may 
here encounter, should ever be suffered to ruffle 
or disconcert him, or find him at any time unpre- 
pared to cope with them : inasmuch as our Lord 
who hath indeed given his people a proper warning 
of all these incidents, hath foretold them, and 
thereby hath fortified the minds of his followers, 
that they might be able to bear whatever should 
happen to them, either by earthquakes, pestilence, 
famine or the sword. And that we might not be 
surprised or overborne by any sudden or unex- 
pected calamities, he halh expressly moreover 
taught and admonished us, that all these mischiefs 
should increase upon us more and more in the 
latter days ; and now behold his predictions veri- 
fied ! Wherefore, since those things are come to 
pass which were foretold by him, those things 
which he hath promised will as surely be accom- 
plished in their proper season : And our Lord, 
we may observe, hath given us to know when we 
may expect them, saying ; " When ye see these 
things come to pass, know ye that the kingdom 
of God is nigh at hand." 

2. The kingdom of God, my brethren, is plainly 
then nigh at hand, and with it the joyful recom- 
pense of life eternal, everlasting gladness, and 
that happy state of paradise which we had so lately 
forfeited ; these all are making their approaches 

B 2 



towards us, by the same steps and paces wherewith 
this world is fleeting from us : And then we shall 
make that blessed advantageous exchange of 
earthly things for heavenly, of mean and trivial 
gratifications for joys too great for our hearts to 
conceive, of a transient and momentary state for 
one which will abide for ever ! What room or 
pretence can then be left for any melancholy 
surmises, or misgiving apprehensions ? Under 
such circumstances, who can have any damp or 
flutter upon his spirits, whose faith and hope are not 
in some manner deficient ? No man should indeed 
be afraid of death,* but he who is afraid to go to 
Christ ; nor can any man be afraid to go to Christ 
but he who hath reason to fear that he shall have 
no part nor lot with Christ in his kingdom. It is 
written, that "the just shall live by faith:" if 
then you are one of those just ones, and as such 
do live by faith, and do really believe in God, 
why are you not overjoyed at receiving your 
summons to be with Christ, in a full dependence 
upon the truth of his promises ; which, when 

* There would be no conclusiveness in this reasoning, nor in that of 
section 4, except our author had been of St. Paul' s opinion, that imme- 
diately upon a good man's dissolution, he went to Christ, Philip, i. 23, 
and 2d Cor. v. 1, 6 ; and indeed our author elsewhere in his tract to 
Demetrian hath given us his sense upon this question very clearly, where 
he saith, " Till upon the conclusion of this transient life we are assigned 
to separate mansions, either of everlasting destruction, or of life immortal." 
And again a little farther, " When we go hence, there is no room for 
repentance, nor any possibility of atoning for our sins by penitential 
satisfactions ; here, or no where, must be laid the foundation of life 
eternal." 



5 

once they are accomplished, will secure you for 
ever from the power of the devil ? It had been 
revealed from heaven to good old Simeon, (that 
true believer unto righteousness,) " that he should 
not see death before he had seen the Lord's 
Christ wherefore, when Christ was brought to 
the temple in the arms of his mother, he presently 
knew by the Spirit that the person then was born 
who had been so foretold to him, and that himself 
should die immediately after seeing him. Thus 
rejoicing in the approaches of his own dissolution, 
and nothing doubting of his favourable reception 
in a better world, "he took the child up in his 
arms, and blessed God, and said, Lord now 
lettest thou thy servant depart in peace according 
to thy word ; for mine eyes have seen thy salva- 
tion." In which words he hath plainly and clearly 
intimated, that the servants of God are then only 
secure of peace and undisturbed repose, when 
they are got out from the storms and hurricanes 
of this world, and have made to the haven of 
everlasting rest ; when upon the swallowing up of 
death in victory, their mortal hath put on a blessed 
immortality. 

3. Hence only can we indeed expect any durable 
peace, repose, or safety : For as to this world, it is 
a state of perpetual conflict and struggle with our 
ghostly enemy, and we are always upon the defen- 
sive against his various assaults. Covetousness, 
incontinence, wrath and ambition, do all attack 



6 



us. The lusts of the flesh, and the several allure- 
ments of the world, are ever seeking some advan- 
tage against us. The mind of man surrounded 
thus with a whole troop of temptations, and always 
attacked by some of them, cannot be every where 
at once, and therefore doth with great difficulty 
maintain its ground against such numerous and 
potent enemies. If covetousness be repulsed, lust 
takes its post, and renews the onset ; if lust be 
worsted, ambition steps into its place ; or if ambi- 
tion prove too weak to gain upon us, either pride, 
or anger, or envy, or a peevish emulation, are, 
some or other of them, ready to enter at an 
unguarded pass, and to assist the tempter, who 
had here, or there, been defeated. At one time 
you are perhaps commanded* to blaspheme Christ, 
at another, to take an unlawful oath. Such and 
so endless are the dangers and tribulations to which 
christians are here obnoxious ; and yet they take 
pleasure in standing continually thus exposed as a 
mark and butt for our grand adversary to shoot 
at ; whereas it is indeed infinitely more desirable 
to be dispatched to Christ, by the help of a speedier 
death ; when he hath beforehand told us what we 
are to expect, from our continuance in this vale of 
tears, and what from our removal out of it : " verily, 

* So the proconsul (as -we are told by Eusebius,) commanded St. 
Polycarp : who replied ; " These eighty-six years have I served him, and 
he never used me hardly ; and how then can I blaspheme my King and 
my Saviour." 



7 



verily, I say unto you, that ye shall weep and 
lament, but the world shall rejoice ; and ye shall 
be sorrowful, but your sorrow shall be turned into 
joy." Who now would not be glad to be rid of 
sorrow ? Who would not with alacrity hasten to 
joy ? But now the time when our sorrow shall 
thus be turned into joy, our Lord hath clearly 
signified to us, where he saith, " I will see you 
again, and your heart shall rejoice, and your joy 
no man taketh from you." Since, then, to see 
Christ, is to rejoice, and we can have no true joy 
till we do see Christ, what madness and infatua- 
tion is it to be in love with afflictions and pres- 
sures, and the troubles of this life, and not rather 
to hasten towards that joy which can never be 
taken from us ? 

4. All this, my brethren, proceeds from a want 
of faith ; because the promises of God are not 
believed, who is faithful and true, and whose word 
will surely be made good to those who trust in it. 
If a man of gravity and known integrity should 
pass his word to you for any thing, you would 
undoubtedly give him credit, and would never 
imagine or suspect that he had any design to 
impose upon you, of whose veracity in his words 
and dealings you were otherwise well satisfied : 
And how, then, can you suffer yourself to be in 
suspense and doubts when God hath passed his 
word to you ? God hath promised you life and 
immortality upon your leaving this world ; and can 



s 



you than possibly doubt of his performance ? This 
were a confession, that you know not God : This 
were to offend against Christ (who is the Lord and 
Master of all true believers) by a criminal incre- 
dulity : This were to be void of all faith, whilst 
yet you pretend to retain a place in the church, 
which is the house of faith : Now how very advan- 
tageous a removal hence will be to us, Christ 
himself, who is the captain of our salvation, and 
our great leader in every thing tending to our 
benefit, hath plainly shewed us ; who, when his 
disciples were discouraged with the news he had 
communicated to them of his design to leave them, 
addressed himself to them in the following manner : 
" If ye loved me, ye would rejoice, because I said, 
I go unto the Father ; " therein strongly hinting 
to us, that when our nearest and dearest friends 
depart this life, we should rather rejoice than 
mourn for their happy exchange. And St. Paul 
is plainly of the same opinion, where he saith, 
" To me to live, is Christ ; and to die is gain 
He counted it gain to be disengaged from the 
various allurements of the world, to continue no 
longer in a state which made him liable to sin, 
and exposed him to the assaults of his fleshly lusts ; 
he esteemed it a blessed improvement of his cir- 
cumstances, to be removed out of the way of 
pressures and afflictions, out of the jaws of the 
lion, and the several attacks of his ghostly enemy ; 
and to obey the call of his Saviour Christ, sum- 



9 



moning him to enter upon the joys of everlasting 
salvation 0 

5. Some are hence staggered, that the contagion 
of this distemper should spread itself amongst our 
people, as well as amongst the Gentiles ; as if the 
great end of a christian's faith were his exemption 
from a share in common calamities, and an un- 
disturbed enjoyment of this world's comforts ; 
whereas the contrary is indeed his lot, and his 
pleasures are all in reversion, whilst he is exposed 
at present to all sorts of sufferings and sorrows. 
Many expect that we should be excepted out of 
the general rule, and that the destroying angel 
should hold his hand, and not involve us in the 
common destruction ; not considering that every 
thing in this world is, and must be, common to us 
with the rest of its inhabitants, as long as we are 
subject to the law of our common birth, and con- 
tinue to be clothed with the same flesh and blood. 
Wherefore, whilst this common receptacle retains 
and holds us, its privileges and disadvantages must 
needs extend alike to us, and our bodies must take 
their fate from the same common incidents, though 
the condition of our souls admits at the same time 
of a very great diversity ; in which at last, and in 
which alone, consists the point of difference be- 
tween christians and other men. So that till 
" this corruptible shall have put on in corruption, 
and this mortal shall have put on immortality, and 
the Spirit [which we receive at our baptism] shall 



10 



have led us to God, we with the rest of mankind 
must share alike in those common inconveniences, 
to which the frame of our bodies doth equally 
expose us. Thus the barrenness of the earth 
makes all alike partakers in the distresses of a 
famine ; and when a city is taken by storm, all its 
inhabitants, without distinction, fall into the hands 
of the enemy. When a continued calm and sun- 
shine withhold the rain from refreshing the ground, 
all feel the drought without exception ; and when 
a ship is dashed against a rock, the wreck is 
universal, and all who are embarked in the same 
bottom suffer it. Thus pains in the limbs, and the 
rage of fevers, affect us equally with the rest of 
mankind, whilst we all alike contract the same 
causes of those several distempers, and carry about 
with us bodies of the same make and constitution. 
Besides ; if a christian would impartially consider 
the terms whereupon he entered into the service 
of his master, he would find himself obliged by 
them to a larger measure of labour and travel than 
the rest of mankind, as having more difficulties 
than they to encounter from the necessary struggles 
with his grand adversary the devil. The holy 
scripture hath foretold this to him, and fore-armed 
him against it. 

6. Thus holy Job, by the loss of his estate, 
and the death of his children, and the sore 
affliction of his body, was so far from being 
conquered, that he came off from the trial 



11 



approved and commended : He exemplified the 
power of his religion by the strength of his patience, 
when in the height of all his sufferings and sor- 
rows lie breathed out his complaints so sub- 
missively in the following words: "Naked came 
I out of my mother's womb, and naked shall I 
return thither ; the Lord gave, and the Lord 
hath taken away ; blessed be the name of the 
Lord!" And when his wife would have per- 
suaded him, in the rage and agony of his torment, 
to have spoken injuriously and dishonourably 
of God and of his dealings, he replied, " Thou 
speakest as one of the foolish women speaketh. 
What ? shall we receive good at the hand of God, 
and shall we not receive evil ? In all this did not 
Job sin with his lips." And therefore we have this 
testimony of him from God upon record : " Hast 
thou considered my servant Job, that there is none 
like him in the earth, a perfect and an upright 
man, one that feareth God, and escheweth evil ?" 
Good men in all ages have exemplified their patience 
by thus enduring affliction : The apostles of our 
Lord learned from him not to murmur at any evils 
which here befel them, but to undergo with con- 
stancy and courage whatever of this kind should be 
laid upon them ; as well remembering that it was 
one great offence of the Jews against God, to 
murmur at his providence ; for God admonished 
them in the Book of Numbers, saying; " And 
thou shalt quite take away their murmurings 



from me, that they die not." Wherefore, my 
beloved brethren, we must bear afflictions with 
patience and courage, and must not murmur at 
them, observing what is written : " The sacrifices 
of God are a broken spirit : a broken and a con- 
trite heart, O God, thou wilt not despise." The 
Holy Ghost hath also spoken to this purpose by the 
mouth of Moses, saying ; " The Lord thy God led 
thee these forty years in the wilderness, to humble 
thee, and to prove thee, to know w r hat was in thine 
heart, whether thou wouldest keep his command- 
ments or no.' 5 And again ; " The Lord your 
God proveth you, to know whether you love the 
Lord your God with all your heart, and with all 
your soul." 

7. Your fear of God, and your affiance in him, 
should indeed be strong enough to prepare you for 
all encounters. Thus the loss of your estate, rack- 
ing pains and torments in all the limbs of your 
body, the melancholy separation of your wife, 
your children, or your dearest friends from you, 
should rather be considered as rencounters to exer- 
cise, than as stumbling-blocks to make you fall ; 
instead of weakening the faith and hope of a 
christian, they should rather exemplify their power; 
and a firm dependence on future good, should flat- 
ten his sense of any present evil. There can be no 
victory, without a struggle for it. When he comes 
off conqueror from that struggle, then, and not 
otherwise, may he expect his crown. A storm 



IS 



approves the skill of a pilot, and a soldier's valour 
must be tried in battle. To dance upon the rising 
wave, where there is no danger, is rather matter 
of entertainment, than any trial of skill ; so that 
nothing but real adversity will pass for a proper 
proof of christian fortitude. The tree which hath 
its root well and deeply fixed in the earth, will not 
give way to the utmost fury of the winds ; a tight 
vessel will bear the assaults of the waves without 
leaking ; and when corn is threshed, you may 
observe the true grain untouched by any blasts of 
wind, whilst the chaff is dispersed and carried off 
by it. Thus the apostle St. Paul hath told us, that, 
after having suffered shipwreck, been beaten with 
rods, and endured many sore calamities, he was 
rather amended then depressed by all of them ; 
and the more he was afflicted, the surer was the 
proof which he gave of his virtues : " There was 
given (saith he) to me a thorn in the flesh, the 
messenger of Satan to buffet me, lest I should be 
exalted above measure. For this thing I besought 
the Lord thrice, that it might depart from me ; 
and he said unto me, My grace is sufficient for 
thee : for my strength is made perfect in weakness." 
Whensoever, therefore, any epidemical distemper 
rages, or any weakness or sickness oppresses us, 
this we are to consider as the season and occasion 
of making our virtue perfect, and of crowning our 
faith, if it be found strong enough to abide the 
test. For thus we find it written : " The furnace 



14 



proveth the potter's vessel ; so doth the trial of 
affliction prove the righteous/' This, then, is the 
great difference between us and others who know 
not God ; that they are full of complaints and 
murmurs in their affliction ; whereas no degrees of 
it can ever allay our sterling faith and virtue ; but 
instead of impairing will improve and strengthen 
them. Even the distemper which at present lies 
so hard upon us, and is so truly terrible in its 
dreadful symptoms ; such as the sinking of our 
strength, grievous inflammations, which prey upon 
the very substance of the parts affected by them ; 
convulsions of the stomach ; a fiery redness of the 
eyes % mortifications, and thence amputations of 
the limbs ; even all this, I say, though so singularly 
grievous and formidable to human nature, assists 
in strengthening and confirming the christian's 
faith. And indeed what an instance is it of bravery 
and heroic courage, to encounter undauntedly so 
many assaults of death and destruction ; to stand 
firm and unmoved amidst the ruins of mankind ; 
and to bear up with vigour and spirit, when others, 
who have no hope in God, sink and despair under 
the heavy burden ? We should embrace with all 
cheerfulness the favourable juncture which pre- 
sents us with such an happy occasion of signalizing 
our faith and patience ; and of going to Christ, 
through the narrow way which leads to him. 

8. Some, it must be confessed, have reason to 
be afraid of dying; but there are such as are not 



15 



entitled to the privilege of regeneration by water 
and the Spirit, and so are obnoxious to the 
damnation of hell ; such, as have no claim to the 
benefits of the cross of Christ, or to his saving 
passion ; such, as a present death shall consign 
to a future ; such, as a departure out of this 
world shall deliver over to the unspeakable tor- 
ment of everlasting burnings in another ; finally, 
such as shall be gainers by a longer continuance 
upon earth ; gainers at least of a reprieve from 
those unutterable sorrows which await them 
at their exit hence. Wherefore, as the present 
mortality carries all the worst effects of the most 
dreadful plague along with it to Jews and heathens, 
and in general to all the enemies of our Lord and 
Saviour ; so the faithful servants of God should 
consider it as introductory to an advantageous 
removal for them : So that when we acknow- 
ledge death to be dealt out in common to the 
righteous and the wicked, we would not be 
understood to mean that there is really no dif- 
ference nor distinction between their several fates ; 
inasmuch as the righteous are called off to a place 
of refreshment, whilst the wicked are hurried to 
their proper punishment ; the former enter the 
sooner upon a state of security, as the latter 
anticipate a part of their final doom. We are 
therefore, my brethren, much out in our reckoning 
of this whole matter ; we discern not in it the 
gracious purposes of providence, nor the advan- 



16 



tages designed to us in this dispensation. Whereas 
we might observe, that by the shock of this 
calamity, and by the dread of sharing in it, the 
lukewarm are spirited, the negligent are awakened, 
the slothful are roused, apostates hasten their return 
to the church they have forsaken, heathens are 
induced to come into it, fresh and numerous 
forces are listed into the service, who will behave 
('tis hoped) with the greater courage and contempt 
of death as having entered upon it in a time 
when death was most likely to be their portion. 

9, Nor is it, my brethren, a circumstance of 
small account in the case before us, that the 
distemper, which appears to us in other respects 
with such a frightful visage, serves as a proper 
test of our obedience, and as a proof and trial of 
our several dispositions ; whether, for instance, 
they who are yet untouched by it, have charity 
enough in them to attend upon the infected ; or 
relations bear a true affection to each other ; or 
masters have any due compassion for the distresses 
of their dying servants ; and whether the furious 
and raging will abate of their fierceness ; or the 
extortioner soften his hand ; or the proud and 
haughty drop their arrogant pretensions. Even 
though the present mortality should in no other 
respect contribute to our advantage, it would, 
however, in this single point be very serviceable 
to us, that it hath taught us to desire martyrdom, 
by arming us against the fears of death ; so that 



17 



each funeral solemnity, is indeed to us a trial of 
our skill, and an exercise of our virtue ; it forti- 
fies our minds, and prepares us for the honour of 
a martyr's crown, by enabling us to despise the 
King of Terrors. 

10. To all this, perhaps, it may be by some 
objected, that this is the particular which most 
afflicts them in the present distress : " They had 
" devoted themselves with all the strength and 
" power of their minds to suffer for the name of 
" Christ, and were prepared, at all adventures, 
" to make a solemn confession of his faith ; and 
" then, it may be, the distemper unhappily steps 
" in between them and their purposes, prevents 
" the effect of them by a sudden stroke, and so 
" deprives them of the honour they had promised 
" themselves of laying down their lives in the 
" cause of Christ and of his gospel." Now to 
this I reply in the first place, that martyrdom is a 
thing not always in their power, as coming of 
grace, and being the gift of God ; that therefore 
they cannot say they have lost what 'tis possible 
they would never have so behaved as to have 
deserved receiving. Besides, there is a very great 
difference between the case of those whose minds 
are prepared for martyrdom, but want the oppor- 
tunity ; and of those who have the opportunity, 
but want the mind for it. God will judge us by 
the dispositions wherein he finds us at his sum- 
mons ; he hath expressly assured us, saying : 

c 



18 



" All the churches shall know that I am he which 
searcheth the reins and hearts." He desires not 
so much our actual martyrdom, as those degrees 
of faith and constancy which fit us for it. For 
Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, were not actually 
slain for the sake of God ; and yet their faith 
and righteousness were in such high esteem 
with him, that their names stand foremost upon 
record in the list of his worthies ; with whom it is 
said, that every faithful and upright servant 
" shall sit down with Abraham, and Isaac, and 
Jacob, in the kingdom of heaven." 

11. Above all things we should bear in our 
minds the obligation we lie under to do not our 
own but our heavenly Father's will ; according to 
what our blessed Lord hath taught us to desire of 
him in our daily prayer. Now how inconsistent 
and absurd is it for us to desire, that his will may 
be done, when yet, upon his summoning us to 
leave this world, we are backward and reluctant, 
and are loth to answer to his call ? Thus we strive 
all we can against it, and like offending servants, 
who are shy of appearing before their master, we 
are haled by force into the presence of our Lord, 
and come thither by constraint, and not by choice. 
How then can we have the face to expect the 
rewards and honours of his kingdom, which we 
would fain have avoided as long as we were able ? 
With what propriety or truth do we pretend to beg 
of him that his kingdom may come, i. e. the king- 



19 



dom of heaven, when we plainly prefer before 
it a state of slavery and bondage upon earth ? 
Wherefore do we so often repeat our desires to 
him, to hasten his kingdom ; when it is evident 
that we would rather continue here in a state of 
subjection to the devil, than reign with him in life 
and glory ? 

12. As a further proof of God's prescience 
and providence, and of his care and concern 
for the real advantages of his servants, take 
the following relation: There was a certain 
fellow-bishop of ours, who, being almost at the 
last gasp, and extremely shocked at the thought 
of death, earnestly begged some time of respite ; 
when in the midst of his prayer, whilst all appear- 
ances foreboded to him a speedy dissolution, there 
stood by him a youth of a majestic presence, tall 
in stature, and of a venerable aspect ; and such as 
mortal eyes could scarce endure to behold, except 
as our brother's near neighbourhood to another 
world might peculiarly qualify him for bearing 
such a spectacle. The youth, with a good deal of 
seeming displeasure and emotion, said to him, 
" You are afraid of suffering, yet are loth to quit 
the place of it ; and what then shall I do for you, 
when you know not what to ask ?" An answer, this, 
which may serve at once for our own correction and 
instruction ! — I also, however unworthy of so great 
an honour, have been frequently warned by express 
revelation from God, to declare in the most public 

c 2 



20 



and pressing manner, that we ought not to mourn 
for the death of those, whom our Lord hath called 
to himself, and delivered from the troubles of 
this world ; inasmuch as we know and should 
consider, that they are not so properly sent away 
from us, as before us ; that they have only 
the start of us, as it were in a voyage or a 
journey ; that though we may be allowed to 
miss them, it will not be fit we should lament 
them, as if they were lost ; lest we give 
hereby a handle to the Gentiles of upbraiding 
our despair and sorrow, in accounting those as 
lost and dead to us, whom we profess to believe 
alive unto God ; and of producing the testimony 
of our hearts against that of our lips ; whilst 
our behaviour upon these occasions speaks us 
not in earnest, though in words we avow our 
belief that our departed brethren are in a state 
of happiness. 

13. For indeed we thus betray our faith and our 
hope ; and whatever we may pretend to say will 
have no weight with it, but will, all of it, carry an 
hypocritical and forced appearance. It signifies 
nothing to talk magnificently of virtue, if we con- 
tradict the truth of our words by inconsistent 
actions. The apostle St. Paul hath blamed and cen- 
sured those, who are dejected with grief upon the 
departure of their friends ; " 1 would not (saith he) 
have you be ignorant, brethren, concerning them 
which are asleep, that ye sorrow not, even as others 



21 



which have no hope : for if we believe that Jesus 
died and rose again, even so them also which sleep 
in Jesus will God bring with him." He observes of 
such as have no hope, that they are the persons most 
apt to be dejected with grief upon the departure 
of their friends. But as for us, who live by hope, 
and believe in God, and consider that Christ suf- 
fered and rose again from the dead for our sakes, 
who abide in Christ, and expect to rise again in 
and through him ; what reason can we have either 
to leave this world with unwillingness and reluct- 
ance, or to bewail the case of those w 7 ho have left 
it, as lost and desperate ? Surely our Lord himself 
hath well encouraged us by saying, " I am the 
resurrection, and the life : he that believeth in me, 
though he were dead, yet shall he live : and who- 
soever liveth and believeth in me shall never die." 
If w r e believe in earnest on Christ, let us give 
credit to his promises ; and since the tenor of 
them hath assured us, that we shall not die for 
ever, let us go to Christ, when he calls us with all 
imaginable cheerfulness, with whom we are to live 
and to reign for ever. We should really therefore 
consider death no otherwise than as a necessary 
passage to life immortal ; inasmuch as we cannot 
arrive at our eternal mansions without leaving 
these temporal ones ; and should therefore, I say, 
look upon our departure hence, as a short and a 
transient journey to our everlasting abode. Who 
then would not hasten to a change so much for the 



22 



better ? Who would not desire, with the greatest 
fervency of spirit, to begin it with the soonest, to 
be fashioned again in the likeness of Christ, and 
so to enter upon the participation of his heavenly 
glory ? The apostle hath proclaimed to us ; " Our 
conversation is in heaven ; from whence also we 
look for the Saviour, the Lord Jesus Christ : who 
shall change our vile body, that it may be fashioned 
like unto his glorious body." This our Lord 
himself hath encouraged us to expect and hope 
for, where he prayed his Father, that we might be 
with him, and share with him the glories of his 
heavenly kingdom : " Father, I will that they 
also, whom thou hast given me, be with me where 
I am ; that they may behold my glory, which 
thou hast given me : for thou lovedst me before 
the foundation of the world." 

14. The man who expects admission to the 
mansions of Christ, and to heavenly glory, will 
be quite out of character if he be found in 
mourning and lamentation ; his faith and his 
firm dependence upon the performance of his 
Master's promises, should rather make his removal 
hence the subject of joy and triumph to him. 
Thus we find that Enoch pleased God and was 
translated into heaven ; as the holy scripture 
witnesseth concerning him, saying, " and Enoch 
walked with God : and he was not ; for God took 
him." It should farther be considered, that the 
world hates a christian, as such; and wherefore 



23 



then should a christian be fond of that which 
hates him ; and not rather follow Christ, who hath 
given him so great a proof of his love, by under- 
taking to redeem him ? St. John has pronounced 
upon this subject with great vehemence, and 
warned us against being seduced by the lusts of 
the flesh into an irregular love of the world. 
" Love not the world, neither the things 
that are in the world. If any man love the 
world, the love of the Father is not in him. For 
all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, 
and the lust of the eyes ; and the pride of life, is 
not of the Father, but is of the world. And the 
world passeth away, and the lust thereof ; but he 
that doeth the will of God abideth for ever." 
Wherefore, my beloved brethren, it will become 
us to resign ourselves entirely to the will of God, 
with courage and constancy, and to prepare our- 
selves for any portion which he shall be pleased 
to allot us : we should lay aside all cowardly 
apprehension of death, and think only of 
that life and immortality to which it leads us : 
We should shew the power of our faith, by bearing 
the departure of our dearest friends without 
undue emotion ; and when it shall please God to 
call us, in our own persons, to himself, we should 
gladly receive his summons, and follow him 
with cheerfulness and without delay. 

15. This is a conduct at all times fit for the 
servants of God $ but at no time more fit than 



24 



now ; when the world is hastening to its period, 
and is already surrounded with various evils, 
which are the harbingers of its approaching 
catastrophe. We, therefore, who observe them 
begun, and know that worse are coming, should 
esteem it our privilege and advantage to be 
removed out of the way of them. — Should the 
walls of your house be bulging, through length 
of time, and threaten its sudden fall, would you 
not make all the haste you could to get out of it ? 
Should a storm arise when you are out at sea, and 
forebode a wreck to you, would you not crowd 
your sails, and make with all speed to harbour ? 
The world, my brethren, gives you as plain 
prognostics of its end approaching, though not so 
much from the length of its continuance, as from 
having reached its appointed period ; and will you 
not then give thanks to God and congratulate your 
own felicity, when you are permitted to make 
your retreat betimes, and to escape thereby the 
shocks and terrors of its dissolution ? 

16. Finally, we should ever carry it in our 
thoughts, and improve it into a standing principle, 
that we have solemnly renounced the world, and 
therefore, whilst we continue in it, should behave 
like strangers and pilgrims. Hence we should 
thankfully welcome that happy day which is to fix 
us, each, in our proper habitation, to rescue us 
from the various embarrassments of the world, 
to disengage us from its perplexities and snares, 



25 



and to restore us to a state of paradise, and to 
the kingdom of heaven. Who amongst us, if he 
had been long a sojourner in a foreign land, would 
not desire a return to his native country ? Who, 
when he had begun to sail thither, would not 
wish for a prosperous wind to carry him home 
with expedition, that he might the sooner embrace 
his friends and relations ? We now should account 
paradise our proper country, as we have already 
begun to reckon the patriarchs our fathers ; and 
therefore should be fond of hasting to the sight of 
that country, to the embraces of our parents and 
our friends. There friends, and parents, and 
brethren, and children, without number wait for 
us, and long to congratulate our happy arrival ; 
they are in secure possession of their own felicity, 
and want onlv the accession of ours to finish and 

a/ 

complete it. How great must we then conceive 
will be our common joy upon the transport of our 
meeting together in those blessed abodes ? How 
unutterable must be the pleasures of the kingdom 
of heaven, which have no allay from any danger of 
their discontinuance, but are sure and immutable 
for evermore, as having eternity added to the 
highest degrees of bliss ? There we shall meet 
with the glorious choir of the apostles ; with the 
goodly company of the prophets ; with an innu- 
merable multitude of holy martyrs, who, agreeably 
to the commands of Christ, have wrought their 
several works of righteousness, and are honoured 



26 



with their crowns of victory. To this delightful 
society, and to Christ who is at the head of it, 
let us hasten, my brethren, upon the wings of 
desire, and of a holy love, and let God and Christ 
observe, that this is the main bent of our wishes, 
and the sum of our most ardent hopes. 



THE LETTER TO THE GOVERNOR 
DEMETRIAN. 



The Pestilence which had raged in Africa was succeeded 
by Famine : and as Demetrian often urged that these 
judgments were owing to the contempt which the 
Christians had shewn for the gods, Cyprian, in a 
powerful reply, both defended the Christians from the 
injurious imputations of their persecutors, and also 
pointed out the causes of all national afflictions. 

1. As you have often visited me, Demetrian, 
rather with the design of disputing and contradicting 
every thing, than of learning any thing ; and as 
you always chose to obtrude upon me boldly your 
own sense, rather than to hear mine with patience 
and attention, I judged it impertinent and insig- 
nificant to maintain a dispute with you ; since I 
could as easily silence the noise of the roaring sea, 
as put a stop to any clamour by reason or discourse. 
Upon these considerations, I have often held my 
peace, and have only opposed my patience to your 
fury; as knowing well it would be in vain to 
attempt instructing the unteachable, restraining 
impiety by any persuasives of religion, or con- 
trolling your mad excursions by mild and gentle 
treatment. But since you suggest a general com- 
plaint against us, and charge upon us the wars, 
the distempers, and the famine, wherewith the 



28 



world is at present distressed ; it is no longer fit 
to be silent under such imputations ; lest our 
backwardness in defending our cause should be 
construed into a distrust of its goodness ; and our 
contempt of false accusations should pass among 
some for a confession of their truth. Wherefore 
I answer, Demetrian, to you, and to the rest, 
whom you perhaps, by your injurious insinuations, 
have joined to your party, and made our enemies. 

2. You place to our account those misfortunes 
and distresses under which the world at present 
labours ; because, forsooth, we will not worship 
your gods. But, as to what may be objected, 
from the frequency and long continuance of wars 
amongst us ; from the melancholy views which 
scarcity and famine give us ; from the waste of 
our health and spirits, by the increase of various 
distempers ; and more particularly from that con- 
suming illness which makes at present such a 
dreadful havock; to all these objections take 
this one answer ; that they have, each of them, 
been foretold ; and that we therefore expect, in the 
latter days, all sorts of evil to befal us ; as well as 
that the wrath of God should more and more be 
kindled against mankind, and discover itself in 
various kinds and forms of punishment. These are 
mischiefs which do not befal the world, as you 
with great ignorance and falsehood complain they 
do, because your gods are not worshipped by us; 
but because, indeed, the true and only God is 



29 



not worshipped by you. For since he is really 
the Lord and governor of the universe, and every 
thing in it proceeds by his appointment and 
direction, and nothing can come to pass without 
his agency, or at least his permission ; whatsoever 
tokens appear of his anger, can never be occa- 
sioned by us who worship him ; but should rather 
be considered as the punishment of your wicked- 
ness, who neither seek after, nor fear him, nor 
can by any means be prevailed with to leave your 
idolatrous and superstitious worship, and come 
in to the acknowledgment of the one true God, 
who is so justly entitled to all our adorations. 
Hear him therefore speaking with his own mouth, 
admonishing and instructing you to this purpose, 
and saying, " Thou shalt fear the Lord thy God, 
and serve him, and shalt swear by his name." 
And again : " Thou shalt have no other gods 
before me." And again : <£ Go not after other 
gods to serve them, and to worship them, and 
provoke me not to anger with the works of your 
hands." And hear one of his prophets, being 
full of the Holy Ghost, denounce his wrath in 
the following terms : " Ye looked for much, 
and, lo, it came to little ; and when ye brought 
it home, I did blow upon it. Why ? saith 
the Lord of hosts. Because of mine house 
that is waste, and ye run every man unto his 
own house. Therefore the heaven over you 
is stayed from dew, and the earth is stayed from 



so 



her fruit. And I called for a drought upon the 
land, and upon the mountains, and upon the corn, 
and upon the new wine, and upon the oil, and 
upon that which the ground bringeth forth, and 
upon men, and upon cattle, and upon all the 
labour of the hands." Another prophet hath 
repeated these menaces, and said, "And also I 
have withholden the rain from you, when there 
were yet three months to the harvest : and I 
caused it to rain upon one city, and caused it not 
to rain upon another city : one piece was rained 
upon, and the piece whereupon it rained not 
withered. So two or three cities wandered unto 
one city, to drink water, but they were not satis- 
fied ; yet have ye not returned unto me, saith the 
Lord." Here you may observe yourselves threat- 
ened with the wrath of God, for not returning to 
him ; and yet, whilst you thus continue in your 
obstinate neglect of his authority, you pretend to 
complain and wonder at his judgments. 

3. You have the confidence to complain, that 
fountains of water do not flow at this time to your 
mind and liking, nor the rain descend as you would 
have it ; that the air is not quite so wholesome, the 
earth not altogether so fruitful ; that the elements 
are not so perfectly obsequious to your advantage 
and pleasure as you would desire of them severally 
to be : meanwhile you forget putting the question 
to your own heart, whether you serve, as you 
ought, that God by whom, and through whom, 



SI 



every thing else is made subservient to you ? 
You expect from your servants all possible obe- 
dience ; though both you and they came into 
the world, and shall go out of it again, upon 
equal terms ; though your bodies are formed of 
the same materials, and your souls have one 
common extraction ; yet except every thing be 
done for you just as you would have it, you storm 
and rage, make large demands upon your depend- 
ants, and exact the most punctual compliance 
from them ; which if they fail in paying, they are 
sure to suffer for it ; to be scourged, or starved, 
or choked ; to be laden with irons, and, it may be, 
to rot in a noisome dungeon, while all this time 
you consider not your profession, that God is your 
master, though you exercise upon a man, like 
yourself, such a savage tyranny. Wherefore be 
your sufferings from the hand of God never so 
severe, though he should pour upon you at present 
all the vials of his wrath, you have deserved the 
worst of them ; and it concerns you farther to 
take notice, that if they have no effect, and do 
not with all their terrors turn you to God, he hath 
still a prison in reserve for you, from whence you 
shall never come out, a fire which never shall be 
quenched, and an everlasting punishment, which 
no cries will ever mitigate ; where God will not 
hear you, because you will not now hear him, 
who by the voice of his prophet hath called to 
you, and said, " Hear the word of the Lord, ye 



82 



children of Israel ; for the Lord hath a controversy 
with the inhabitants of the land, because there is 
no truth, nor mercy, nor knowledge of God in the 
land. By swearing, and lying, and killing, and 
stealing, and committing adultery, they break out, 
and blood toucheth blood. Therefore shall the 
land mourn, and every one that dwelleth therein 
shall languish, with the beasts of the field, 
and with the fowls of heaven ; yea, the fishes 
of the sea also shall be taken away." God, 
you may observe, doth here declare his dis- 
pleasure, that there is no knowledge of him in 
the land, that his name is not confessed nor 
feared. He resents and arraigns these heavy 
crimes of lying, lusting, and cheating ; he threatens 
the cruelty, the impiety, and madness of the age; 
yet no one is reformed by it. You see and feel 
the execution of his menaces, and yet your present 
evils have no such effect upon you as to put you 
upon any care of guarding against future. In 
the midst of those heavy pressures which lie so 
hard upon you, that you are almost stifled by 
them, you yet find leisure for a farther progress 
in wickedness, and, even in the height of your 
danger, for turning your censures and reflections 
upon others rather than yourselves. You think 
it hard that God should be displeased with you, 
as if your ill lives had really deserved his favour, 
or the measure of your sufferings had exceeded 
that of your provocations. 



83 

4. You, whose province it is to be a judge of 
others, exercise for once your office upon your 
own person, and judge yourself ; look impartially 
into the secrets of your conscience ; and, as now 
there is no where left any fear or shame in offend- 
ing, and men sin with as much confidence as if 
they were to make a merit of it ; I beseech you to 
see yourself, and you will find, I am persuaded, 
upon the self-examination which I am now recom- 
mending to you, that covetousness makes you an 
extortioner, or that anger provokes you to cruelty, 
or that gaming tempts you to profuseness. And 
can you then wonder that the wrath of God against 
man increases, when the offences of man against 
God increase ; or that the vengeance of the one 
rises in proportion to the provocations of the 
other ? You complain of new wars and enemies ; 
when yet, alas ! if they did not appear from abroad, 
they would be found at home ; and if you could 
suppress at pleasure the attempts of foreigners and 
barbarians, you would have a much harder task of 
it to stop the injuries and insolences of domestic 
oppressors. You think the barrenness of the earth, 
and the prevailing famine, great and mighty 
grievances ; as if they really made more havoc, or 
did more mischief, than your greediness of gain, 
and your monopolies of corn, which raise the price 
of it as much as the greatest scarcity. The 
heavens, you object, are shut up, and withhold the 
rain from you j whilst yet you suffer your barns to 

D 



84 



be shut up, and to withhold from the inhabitants 
of the earth, what should nourish and sustain them. 
There is not, you say, the usual increase, either of 
vegetables or of animals. Why, if there were, 
the poor, you are sensible, would be never the 
better for it. You are disturbed at the continuance 
and progress of this same epidemical distemper ; 
when yet it discovers the latent wickedness of 
some, and gives an occasion to the increase of it 
amongst others ; as the sick have no compassion 
extended to them, and as the survivor's covetous- 
ness expects their death, with impatience, whose 
life withholds him from falling on the prey. Our 
greatest quarrel with you is, that you vent your 
rage and fury upon the innocent, and, to the great 
dishonour of God, you vex and persecute his 
faithful servants. It is a small matter, it seems, 
with you, to corrupt your lives and manners with 
all the varieties and kinds of wickedness which 
can be thought of ; to subvert the great ends of 
all true religion by your superstitious practices ; 
to drop all regard and reverence for the majesty of 
the supreme being ; but you must add, besides, to 
all this load of guilt, the farther aggravation of 
oppressing those who are devoted to his service, 
and would give him the glory due unto his name. 
Is it not enough that you do not, in your own 
person, worship the true God ? Wherefore must 
you needs be so hard upon those who do ? You 
neither will do it yourself, nor suffer it to be done 



by others. Not only they who worship dumb 
idols, and images made by the hands of man, but 
even they who pay their religious addresses to 
monsters, to things which have no resemblance to 
them in nature, it seems, can please you ; only the 
worshipper of the true God is peculiarly unfortu- 
nate, and can find no acceptance with you. Your 
temples and altars are kept always warm and 
smoking with your sacrifices ; and yet the true 
God hath no altars but what we are forced to 
conceal. Crocodiles, and apes, and stones, and 
serpents have religious worship paid to them ; 
whilst the true God can have none, or, however, 
none with safety to the persons of the worshippers. 
You banish, you fine, you throw into chains and 
prisons ; fire ; and sword, and wild beasts execute 
your vengeance upon men who are innocent and 
upright, and favourites of heaven. Nor are you 
pleased to put us presently out of our pain, or to 
dispatch us speedily 5 but you invent for us 
lingering torments, you multiply upon us various 
instruments of cruelty ; nor is your rage contented 
with accustomed or common punishments, but 
you labour hard to find out such as are new, 
and as yet unheard-of. What savage rage, what 
cruelty of disposition, and appetite to torment us, 
is this, whereof your practice towards us makes a 
discovery ! Take which part you please of the 
following dilemma, and try if you can justify it. 
It is either a crime, or no crime to be a christian : 

d 2 



36 



Jf it be a crime, why do } 7 ou not forthwith dispatch 
the man who pleads guilty to the charge ? If it 
be no crime, why do you pursue the innocent w T ith 
vexatious prosecutions ? If I denied your charge, 
then, indeed, you might legally and fairly put me 
to the torture : If I endeavoured to conceal the 
crime whereof you accuse me, by trick and 
doubling ; if I declined owning what i am ; if I 
did not plainly and clearly acknowledge that I am 
no worshipper of your gods, you would then have 
a fair occasion against me. But you have abundant 
witnesses of my confessing your charge against 
me : I own myself a christian before thousands of 
you ;* and by such acknowledgment, I reject, and 

* This good coufession Cyprian again witnessed immediately before his 
execution : — 61 The arriyal of the Proconsul was announced, and this 
yenerable servant of Christ was brought before him into the judgment- 
hall. "Are you Thascius Cyprian?" "I am." "Are jou he whom 
the christians call their Bishop ?" " I am." " Our Princes have ordered 
you to worship the gods." " That I will not do." " You would judge 
better to consult your safety, and not to despise the gods." " My safety 
and my strength is Christ the Lord, whom I desire to serve for ever." 
" I pity your case," says the Proconsul, " and could wish to consult for 
you." I have no desire," says the prelate, " that things should be 
otherwise with me, than that I may adore my God, and hasten to him 
with all the ardour of my soul ; for the afflictions of this present time are 
not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us." 
The Proconsul grew red with anger ; and immediately pronounced 
sentence of death in the following terms : — 1,4 You have lived sacrilegiously 
a long time ; you have formed a society of impious conspirators ; you 
have shown yourself an enemy to the gods and their religion, and have 
not hearkened to the equitable counsels of our princes ; you have ever 
been a father and a ringleader of the impious sect — You shall, therefore, 
be an example to the rest, — that, by the shedding of your blood, they 
may learn their duty. Let Thascius Cyprian, who refuses to sacrifice to 
the gods, be put to death by the sword." " God be praised," said the 
martyr ; and while they were leading him away, a multitude of the people 
followed and cried, — " Let us die with our holy Bishop." — Milker. 



37 



as far as in me lies, I overthrow your gods, and 
the whole scheme of your worship and religion. 
Whilst I am therefore thus frank and open, why 
are you so mean and so ungenerous as to make 
your attack upon my weakest part, and to begin 
your dispute with the frailties of my flesh ? Turn 
your arms, for shame, against a fitter enemy ; try 
your skill upon my mind, my soul, my reasoning 
powers ; see if you can make any impression 
there, or gain the least advantage over my faith. 

5. What stupidity therefore is it, and blindness 
of heart, to reject the overtures made for bringing 
you out of darkness into light ? What madness 
for those who are entangled in the chains of eternal 
death, to refuse the offers of eternal life ? To 
hear, without concern, those menaces of God, 
saying ; " He that sacriflceth unto any god, save 
unto the Lord only, he shall be utterly destroyed." 
And again : " They worship the work of their 
own hands, that which their own fingers have 
made ; and the mean man boweth down, and the 
great man humbleth himself; therefore forgive 
them not." Wherefore, then, do you bow down and 
humble yourself to false gods ? Why do you 
slavishly bend your body in honour to silly images, 
and the work of men's hands ? God hath made 
you upright ; to other animals he hath given 
indeed a different shape and figure, and made 
them to look downwards upon the earth ; but your 
posture was formed erect, and your countenance 



38 



designed for looking up to God. To him therefore 
look up, as you were made to do ; seek him in 
his holy habitation, which is in the highest heavens. 
That you may avoid the damnation of hell, lift up 
your heart and your thoughts to heaven. Where- 
fore should you lie groveling upon the ground, in 
the way to ruin, with the serpent which first 
beguiled you ? Why will you accompany the 
devil in his destruction, and be content to fall with 
him, and by him ? Why should you not rather 
preserve yourself upright, as God hath made you ; 
and let your mind resemble the posture and figure 
assigned to your body ? Know first yourself, and 
consider the just dignity of your being, that thence 
you may acquaint yourself with God, and pay him 
his proper honours. Forsake those idols which 
owe their original to human art and invention. 
Turn unto the true God, who will hear and help 
you, whenever you humbly ask it of him. Believe 
in Christ, the Son of God, sent by his Father to 
make us alive unto him. Desist from your inju- 
rious persecutions of those who profess themselves 
the servants of God and Christ, and whose cause 
will one day be avenged by them : This apprehen- 
sion is indeed the reason why we never make any 
resistance when your officers take us into custody ; 
and though our numbers are great, and we are 
consequently able to make our adversaries very 
sensible of our resentments ; yet we bear all your 
violence and injustice, without the least return to it. 



39 



6. It is indeed our entire dependence upon the 
providence of God who will own and avenge 
our cause, which encourages us to bear with 
patience the most injurious treatment. Upon this 
foundation good men are content to yield to 
wicked ; and they who are guiltless of any crime, 
acquiesce in punishments and torments, upon an 
assurance that whatever they suffer, shall have in 
due time its proper vindication ; and that the 
more unjust or grievous their adversaries' usage of 
them shall be, such in proportion will be the 
vengeance taken for it. And indeed an instance 
can scarce be named wherein the men of our 
persuasion have suffered from the malice and 
cruelty of their enemies, but that at the same time 
the justice of God hath visibly attended and 
repaid the oppressor. To say nothing of examples 
long since past, wherein the vengeance of God 
hath appeared on the behalf of his faithful worship- 
pers, we have an instance, fresh in memory, of a 
great and sudden relief vouchsafed us, by the utter 
ruin* of those princes who shewed themselves so 

* The persecution ot the Christians within the Roman Empire, though 
designed to appease the anger of the gods, and to prevent the devastations 
of the Barbarians, was, nevertheless, succeeded by dreadful irruptions of 
the Goths. Decius, opposing them in person, obtained a decisive victory ; 
but, having resolved to pursue it, he was led into a defile by the treachery 
of his own General. In this disadvantageous situation he first saw his 
son killed with an arrow, and soon after his whole army put to rout. 
Resolving therefore not to survive his loss, he put spurs to his horse, and 
instantly plunging into a quagmire, was swallowed up, and his body could 
never after be found*. . 



40 



much our enemies, and by the mighty loss at that 
time sustained of soldiery, treasure, and all sorts 
of military provisions. And let no one think that 
this was an event which happened by chance, or 
in the common course of things, since it is so 
expressly said in holy scripture, " Vengeance is 
mine ; I will repay, saith the Lord.'' And again 
the Holy Ghost hath cautioned us to the following 
purpose : " Say not thou, I will recompense evil, 
but wait on the Lord, and he shall save thee." 
Prom all which it is evident that the mischiefs 
complained of, and supposed very justly to proceed 
from the wrath of the offended deity, come not 
upon mankind through any fault of ours, but are 
really designed for our defence and vindication. 

7. And let it be no objection to the preceding 
remark, that Christians have, themselves, some 
share of those calamities which I have asserted to 
come upon the world for their vindication ; for the 
afflictions of this life are grievous and terrible to 
those chiefly who have no prospect of happiness or 
of enjoyment out of it. Well may he lament and 
mourn for those pressures and distresses which he 
suffers here, who hath no resources of comfort 
hereafter ; whose greatest views and designs from 
life must be here, or no where, answered ; who 
reckons much upon the little felicities wherewith 
this short and mutable state of things can furnish 
him, and hath no expectation but of pain and 
punishment beyond it. Whereas they feel not the 



41 



sorest sting of present evils, who have the assurance 
of a recompence for them in future good : Where- 
fore adversity hath no power over us to break or 
discontent our spirits ; nor doth any misfortune, 
incident either to our estates or bodies, make us 
murmurers ; but, as we profess to live rather by 
the spirit than the flesh, we get over the weakness 
of our bodies by the strength and firmness of our 
minds : We know and are sure that the events 
which are most afflictive and grievous to you, are 
designed to approve and fortify our virtues ; and 
can you then imagine that we are equally sufferers 
with you in any common calamity, when yet you 
and we are so very unequally prepared to bear it ? 
You, upon every such occasion, are impatient and 
loud complainants ; we ever acquiesce in it with a 
religious fortitude, and with a becoming sense of 
the hand which sends it : Nor do we, indeed, 
expect any thing of happiness, or comfort, in this 
life ; but preparing ourselves to weather the storms 
of it, in the best manner we can, we wait with 
patience and calmness for the blessed hour, when 
God shall make good his precious promises con- 
cerning us : For whilst we continue in these 
bodies, we pretend not to any exemption from the 
common fate of them ; nor is this, we know, the 
place of distinction for mankind, or of separation 
between the good and evil ; for that we must wait 
the opening of another scene : Meanwhile, as the 
righteous and the wicked live all together in one 



42 



* common habitation, whatever happens within the 
walls of it, all must be content promiscuously to 
take their share in ; till upon the conclusion of 
this temporal and fleeting life we are parted into 
separate mansions of everlasting destruction, or of 
life immortal. 'Tis a mistake, therefore, to say 
that we are upon an equal foot with you, only 
because, whilst we are clothed with the same 
bodies, and live in the same world with you, we 
are liable to the same common inconveniences ; 
for since whatever is truly grievous in any calamity, 
ariseth from that uneasy sense of it, wherewith 
the parties under it do severally receive it ; 'tis 
plain that the punishment affects not us and you 
equally, because our sense of it is apparently very 
different from yours. Our hope and faith are in 
their bloom and vigour, and even the ruins of the 
world would not sink our courage, or depress our 
virtue ; we repose ourselves ever with cheerfulness 
and patience on God's good providence, and are 
secure of his favourable protection in all events ; 
according to the encouragement which the Holy 
Ghost hath given to our faith, where he hath said 
by the mouth of his prophet : " The fig-tree shall 
not blossom, neither shall fruit be in the vines ; 
the labour of the olive shall fail, and the fields 
shall yield no meat ; the flock shall be cut off 
from the fold, and there shall be no herd in the 
stalls : Yet I will rejoice in the Lord, I will joy in 
the God of my salvation." He intimates that the 



43 



man of God, the true worshipper of him, hath the 
foundations of his faith and hope so firmly settled, 
that no storms or tempests of the world can shake 
them. Though the vine and the olive should fail, 
and the field be barren for want of moisture to 
fatten it, yet all this were nothing to christians, 
to the servants of the most high God, who are 
lured by better expectations, by prospects of 
paradise, and of all the joys which the kingdom 
of heaven can exhibit to them. They do therefore 
rejoice in the Lord, and do joy in the God of their 
salvation ; and so bear with patience and courage 
the worst which can befal them, in sure and certain 
hope of the many felicities which shall hereafter 
await them : For we who have disclaimed our first 
birth, and are regenerate and created anew by the 
spirit of God* do profess to live to him, and not to 
the world ; we do not indeed expect to partake of 
his rewards and promises till we go hence to him; 
yet, for deliverance from our enemies, for obtaining 
rain when it is most necessary, for the removal or 
mitigation of any temporal calamities ; for these, 
and such like mercies, we apprehend ourselves 
warranted to make continual intercession at the 
throne of grace : and thus we cease not day and 
night, endeavouring to obtain for you the favour 
of God, and to appease his anger ; to solicit your 
forgiveness, and to forward your salvation. Upon 
the whole, therefore, it should be no encourage- 
ment to any of you to believe that the judgments 



44 



of God are not pointed at you, merely because 
the common condition of your and our nature 
makes a participation of its common burdens 
necessary, as well to us who are his faithful ser- 
vants, as to you who are his professed and open 
enemies. For indeed it hath already been foretold 
by God himself, and by his prophets, that his 
wrath should overtake the unrighteous ; that we, 
'tis true, should have our share of persecutions 
and afflictions, which would be grievous to flesh 
and blood ; but yet that they who should bring 
them upon us would be sure to suffer for their 
outrages against us. For thus it is written, 
" Behold, the day cometh that shall burn as an 
oven ; and all the proud, yea, and all that do 
wickedly, shall be stubble; and the day that 
cometh shall burn them up, saith the Lord of hosts, 
that it shall leave them neither root nor branch." 

8. Repent ye, therefore, whilst ye have the 
opportunity, and lay hold of eternal life ; and as 
the world is now near its end, let the fear of God 
prevail with you to turn to him. Account it not 
a pleasure to domineer and to rule imperiously 
over just and harmless persons in this world ; but 
remember, that in the finest wheat there will be a 
mixture of noxious or worthless weeds. Suggest 
not that evils befal you, because we do not worship 
your gods ; but be assured that this is the process 
of God's wrath, to search with his judgments those 
whom his mercies cannot gain upon. Seek ye 



45 



therefore after God, though it be late ; who hath 
long ago thus exhorted you by his prophet, saying, 
"Seek the Lord, and ye shall live;" acquaint 
yourselves with God, how long soever you have 
neglected him ; and bear in mind those words of 
Christ, wherein he hath declared, " This is life 
eternal ; that they might know thee the only true 
God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent." 
Believe him who cannot deceive ; who hath fore- 
told that all these things shall happen. Believe 
him who will assign to believers the recompense 
of eternal life ; who will inflict on unbelievers the 
everlasting punishment of hell fire. When the 
day of judgment cometh, how great will then be 
the glory of our faith, and how astonishing the 
terror of your infidelity ! How will the hearts of 
believers overflow with joy; and the breasts of 
unbelievers be filled with sorrow ! To consider 
that here they would not believe, when they will 
hereafter have no opportunity of returning hither, 
to be put upon the trial whether they will believe 
or no! The flames of that devouring fire which 
never shall be quenched, will punish with endless 
torments those who are adjudged to them ; nor 
will their sufferings have the least allay from any 
hope or prospect that time will finish or abate 
them. Their souls and bodies shall be preserved 
to make each other completely miserable. There 
the men, to whom we were here for a while the 
spectacles of reproach and contempt, will be so to 



46 



us for ever ; and the little pleasure they took ill 
feeding their eyes for a few moments with our 
misery, will be requited to them by a reverse of 
the scene, and by being, themselves, a gazing 
stock to all generations. For thus the holy scrip- 
ture hath declared concerning them : " Their 
w 7 orm shall not die, neither shall their fire be 
quenched ; and they shall be an abhorring unto 
all flesh." 

9. Too late will they begin to believe an eter- 
nal punishment, who would not in time believe 
an eternal life. Wherefore make, whilst you may, 
a careful provision for your life and safety. We 
offer you the best and most valuable present which 
we are able to make you, when we thus advise and 
persuade you. And because we are forbidden to 
hate you, and have good reason to think we please 
our Lord and Master, when we attempt no return 
of evil for evil ; therefore we beseech and exhort 
you, whilst you have the opportunity, whilst you 
are on this side the grave, and the world hath yet 
any time remaining to it, that you would labour 
to make your escape from the gross darkness of 
superstition, into the pure and heavenly light of 
true religion. You see we envy none of your 
advantages, nor do we endeavour to conceal the 
mercies of God from you. We return you good 
for evil ; and requite the torments and punishments 
wherewith you have loaded us, with directing you 
to the way of happiness and salvation. Wherefore, 



47 



once more, believe, and live ; we invite, we 
beseech you, who at present are our persecutors, 
to rejoice with us for ever. 

10. Upon our removal hence there will be no 
place for repentance, nor any possibility of atoning 
for our sins by penitential satisfactions. Here, or 
no where, must be laid the foundation of eternal 
life. Here, or no where, must our worship of 
the true God, and the effects of our believing on 
him, secure us an interest in the kingdom of 
heaven. Nor let any one be discouraged by the 
sinfulness of his past life, or by the shortness of 
the time which remains to him in it, from beginning 
his endeavours after the attainment of salvation. 
There is no repentance too late for you, whilst 
you continue upon the present scene. The door 
of God's mercy stands always open, and access 
to the truth is ever easy to such as diligently seek 
it here : Even in your last moments of life apply 
to God for the pardon of your sins ; even then 
acknowledge him, who only hath immortality, with 
an unfeigned faith ; and your confession will 
secure your forgiveness : His never-failing compas- 
sions will expunge the guilt of each true believer ; 
and so from the midst of the valley of the shadow 
of death will open him a passage to life and 
immortality. This advantage we derive from the 
gracious undertaking of Christ our Lord ; this is 
the peculiar triumph of his cross, on which he 
hath purchased to himself, by the price of his 



48 



blood, those who shall believe in him ; hath 
reconciled mankind unto God the Father, and 
quickened us again by a spiritual and second 
birth. To him therefore let every one of us 
faithfully adhere, and closely follow him ; let us 
all be found upon his roll, and marked with his 
signature ; he points to us the path of life, he 
restores us to paradise, and will at length bring us 
to the kingdom of heaven, where we shall live for 
ever with him, being made, through his means, 
the children of God ; and where we shall eternally 
rejoice with him, being re-instated in all the 
privileges we had forfeited, through the merits of 
his all-atoning blood. 



PAKT II. 



E 



TISACT I. 



ON THE UNITY OF THE CHURCH. 

Upon occasion of the schism begun by Novatian, who 
thought himself a fitter person than Cornelius to be 
Bishop of Rome, and therefore procured himself to 
be clandestinely ordained by three Italian Bishops ; 
Cyprian, having thoroughly examined the rival 
pretensions of Cornelius and Novatian, determined to 
send his letters of communion to the former. — The 
custom of those times for preserving a communication 
and communion between distant churches, was by 
letters of communion sent to and from the Bishops of 
those churches. He who was newly elected Bishop 
notified his election to the other Bishops of the 
Christian Church ; who, if the election were disputed 
(as it was in this case between Cornelius and Novatian), 
examined the pretensions of both sides, and then 
directed their letters to the Bishop, whose election 
and ordination they judged most regular. — Now 
Cornelius had the choice of the people, and the appro- 
bation of the clergy, and a regular ordination con- 
firming both the one and the other ; so that he was 
regular Bishop of the Church of Rome, and therefore 
Novatian's opposition to him afterwards was in every 
part of it schismatical. After this matter had been 
long debated in the African Church, and at last 
determined in favour of Cornelius, and after many 
endeavours used by Novatian to procure friends to his 
E 2 



52 



cause, Cyprian, towards the latter end of the year 
251, wrote this tract on the Unity of the Church, to 
prevent any ill impressions which Novatian's attempts 
might fix on the minds of the people in favour of his 
schism. 



1. Christ our Lord having admonished, and told 
us, saying, " Ye are the salt of the earth and 
having directed us moreover to be plain and 
harmless, but withal to arm ourselves with wisdom 
and prudence ; what is there, my beloved brethren, 
so properly incumbent upon us, as a care to find 
out, and caution to avoid the snare which is laid for 
us by our subtle adversary ; lest we who profess to 
have put on Christ, the wisdom of God the Father, 
be found at length deficient in a prudential care of 
our own salvation ? We mistake, if we imagine 
that the only danger we have to fear, arises from 
that open persecution* which strikes directly at 
the servants of the true God, and professedly 
seeks their ruin and destruction. In so plain a 
case 'tis natural for us to take the alarm, and to 
be upon our guard. When the enemy shews 
himself, and advances to attack us in the open 
light, we prepare and fortify our minds for the 
encounter, and so he finds us in readiness to 
receive him : but the danger is then indeed more 
truly formidable when he creeps slily towards us, 



* The Decian persecution was just now either much abated, or quite 
finished ; so that our author here alludes to a case fresh in memory. 



53 



and we do not observe his motions ; when under 
the notion of peace and security he steals upon us 
unawares, and makes good the propriety of his 
name* by the manner of his proceeding with us. 
This hath ever been his guise and craft in imposing 
upon mankind. In the infancy of the world, with 
soft and enticing suggestions, he ensnared our 
first parents. In the same way he made his attempts 
upon our blessed Lord, under the cover of a dis- 
guise, with soft and delusive insinuations ; but 
there he was presently found out and rebuffed, and 
rebuffed the more easily for being known and 
discovered. Wherefore we have hence a caution 
to avoid the snare wherein the first man Adam 
was taken, and encouragement at the same time 
given us to tread in the footsteps of our 
second representative, who came off conqueror; 
so that we may not fall back again through our 
heedlessness and neglect into the jaws of death, 
from which we are just delivered ; but being warned 
of our danger, and upon the guard against it, may 
obtain that immortal life which Christ hath pur- 
chased and procured for us. But how will it be 
possible we ever should obtain it, except we will 
attend to those commands of our Saviour, through 

* Our author's words will not admit the turn in our language, which 
he had given them in his ; because there is no such room for deriving 
serpent from creeping in English, as there is for deriving serpens from 
serpo in Latin; his words are, cum per pacis imaginem fallens, occultis 
accessibus serpit, unde & nomen serpentis accepit. 



54 



which we may conquer sin and death ? Since he 
hath plainly laid the conditions before us, where 
he saith, " If thou wilt enter into life, keep the 
commandments." And again : " Ye are my friends 
if ye do whatsoever I command you." Surely, 
these are the persons whom he pronounces firm 
and trusty, these are they who are founded on 
an immoveable rock ; these will stand unshaken 
against all the storms and tempests of a boisterous 
world : " Whosever (saith he) heareth these sayings 
of mine, and doeth them, I will liken him unto a 
wise man, which built his house upon a rock ; and 
the rain descended, and the floods came, and the 
winds blew, and beat upon that house, and it fell 
not ; for it was founded upon a rock." But now 
with what consistency can any man pretend that 
he believes in Christ, who will not do what Christ 
hath commanded him ? Or how can he expect to 
receive the recompence of his faith who is not true 
to those engagements under which his faith hath 
laid him ? He must needs be wavering and uncer- 
tain in his motions, and be tossed up and down by 
a spirit of error and delusion ; nor can he ever 
propound continuing his progress to a happy end, 
who keeps not steady to that way and that truth 
which lead to life. 

2. Nor is our caution, my beloved brethren, to 
be confined to those dangers only which are plain 
and obvious, but it must be extended also to such 
as are less apparent and observable, and are there- 



55 



fore the more apt to ensnare, because they surprise 
us, and rather creep upon us by stratagem than 
attack us by open force. Now since light hath 
sprung up to lighten the Gentiles, and to save 
mankind ; since the deaf have heard the voice of 
God propounding to them the terms of salvation ; 
since the blind have begun to open their eyes, and 
to look upwards to him ; since the weak and the 
sickly have felt his saving health, enlivening and 
adding new vigour to them ; since the lame are 
enabled to run into his church, and find a refuge 
in it ; and since the dumb every where perceive 
their mouths opened, and their tongues loosed 
to supplicate and praise him ; since, I say, our 
adversary finds his affairs in this posture, and that 
the coming of Christ hath discovered his strata- 
gems, and weakened his power ; what on his part 
could be a more cunning after-game, than, upon 
observing his idols and his temples deserted, 
through the multitude of such as believe in Christ, 
to think of a new device for retrieving his losses, 
viz. by gaining those over to his interest, under 
the name and shelter of the christian faith, whom 
he could not prevail upon directly to abandon it ? 
The invention, in short, was this ; to sow amongst 
us heresies and schisms ; with these to subvert the 
faith, to corrupt the truth, and to divide us from 
one another. Those therefore whom he can no 
longer keep in their former state of darkness, he 
fain would confound and entangle in the progress 



56 



of their new undertaking. Thus the church itself 
proves no security to men against his wiles ; he 
drags them even thence into his service ; and 
whilst they are flattering themselves with an 
imagination that they are near the light, and are 
in a manner clear of all the darkness which 
before they were involved in, he overspreads them 
unawares with a darkness of another nature, and 
leads them into the pernicious error of calling 
themselves christians, whilst yet they regard not 
the law of Christ, and keep not up to the tenor 
of his gospel. Thus walking in darkness, they 
think they have the light along with them ; for so 
their grand adversary flatters and deceives them, 
who, as the apostle well hath said of him, "is 
transformed into an angel of light, therefore it 
is no great thing if his ministers also be trans- 
formed as the ministers of righteousness who 
put night for the day, destruction for salvation, 
despair for hope, betraying the faith instead of 
keeping it, and promoting the interests of anti- 
christ under the name of Christ ; thus by a 
similitude of names corrupting the truth of things. 

3. All this mischief hath hence its rise, my 
beloved brethren, that we will not trace up the 
truth of things to their original, nor look back to 
their fountain head, nor observe the doctrine of 
our heavenly master. If we would consider these 
things, and weigh them as we ought, we should 
have no great need of resorting to argument, or 



57 



to long debates. For in matters of faith, the way 
to come at the truth of them is very short and 
compendious, and fact at last is instead of all 
other proof. We read of our blessed Lord saying 
to Peter,* " Thou art Peter, and upon this rock 
I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall 
not prevail against it ; and I will give unto thee the 
keys of the kingdom of heaven, and whatsoever 
thou shalt bind on earth shalt be bound in heaven ; 
and whatsoever thou shalt loose on earth, shall be 
loosed in heaven." And again after his resurrec- 
tion our Lord saith unto the same Peter, " Feed 
my sheep." And though we may observe him 
giving the same power to all his apostles, where 
he saith : " As my Father hath sent me, even 
so send I you ;" yet to manifest his regard to 
unity, he took his rise from one, and settled 
the whole upon that foundation. The other 
apostles were, in truth, what Peter was, entitled 

* It will be difficult for the Church of Home to confirm the pre- 
tensions of her Bishop, by an argument rather designed for illustra- 
tion than for strict reasoning ; for even upon this very argument it is 
plainly enough declared, that in strictness of reckoning the other apostles 
were what Peter was. It is no wonder, however, that a church, which 
was fixed in the imperial seat, and which preserved at that time an 
uncorrupted purity of doctrine, should have a regard paid to it superior 
to any other single church. It had indeed better means and helps for 
preserving the purity of its doctrine, from the circumstance of its being 
so near the imperial seat, where the greatest numbers of good and able 
men might naturally be expected ; and from whence the records of what 
had been delivered by the apostles might more faithfully and fully be 
transmitted than they could be from any other church. We could wish 
it were so now ; and then we should be less apt to dispute with her Bishop 
any precedencies which he could reasonably claim. 



58 



to an equal share with him of dignity and power ; 
but, I say, the process began with one, that the 
church might be considered as one ; which one 
church the Holy Ghost, personating Christ, hath 
described to us in Solomon's Song, saying, <s My 
dove, my undefiled is but one ; she is the only one 
of her mother ; she is the choice one of her that 
bare her." 

4. Can any man therefore be so weak as to 
flatter himself that he holds the faith of Christ 
inviolate, when he doth not preserve the unity of 
his church ? Can any man boast of his continuing 
in his church, when he sets himself in opposition 
to it ? St. Paul hath told him otherwise, where 
alluding to the unity of the church, he saith, 
" There is one body, and one spirit, even as ye are 
called in one hope of your calling ; one Lord, one 
faith, one baptism, one God." To this unity 
therefore we should firmly adhere, and be careful 
to maintain it. Let no man then offer to impose 
upon our brethren with specious and false pre- 
tences ; or corrupt the purity of our most holy 
faith, by sneaking from a just defence of it.* The 



* Nemo fidei veritatem perfida prsevaricatione corrumpat. Prevarica- 
tion is touching but lightly upon the main merits of the cause, and 
insisting upon points of less concern ; which in advocates was censured 
as a betraying the cause of their clients. Cyprian here is far from 
imitating them, but speaks boldly and plainly to the point in hand ; to 
the unity of the church and of his own order, and to the guilt of those 
who made a breach in either. 



59 



episcopate is single,* and there is but one, of 
which however each bishop holds his part, with 
the privilege and the duty of being interested in 
the whole. The church of Christ is likewise one and 
single, whatsoever increase it may receive in its 
numbers, or howsoever it may be extended over 
the face of the whole earth ; as the sun hath many 
rays, yet but one fountain of light ; or as a tree 
may have many branches, yet but one root fixed 
deep in the earth ; or as when many rivulets or 
streams descend from the spring-head, they appear 
indeed divided in their number, and yet preserve 
the unity of their original. Suppose now a ray to 
be separated from the body of the sun, yet the 
nature of light is such that it will admit of no 
multiplication ; or break off a branch from the 
tree it grows on, and in that broken state it will 
neither blossom nor bear fruit ; intercept the 
communication between the stream and its foun- 
tain, and the stream will presently dry up. Thus 

* Episcopatus unus est, cujus a singulis in soliduni pars tenetur. Upon 
this foundation of each Bishop being interested in the whole church, all 
the coercive power of discipline stands, which was exercised over any one 
by the rest. The words in soliduni are forensic, and allude to the case 
of divers contractors, each of which was bound not'' only for his propor- 
tionable part, but if the rest failed was to make good the whole. This 
our author applies to the episcopate. There was one flock and one 
government of it, committed indeed to divers persons ; but so that each 
of those to whom it was committed had an interest in the whole, and an 
obligation incumbent on him to extend his care to the whole, as oppor- 
tunity should offer ; though for order's sake, and for the more convenient 
discharge of his duty to the whole, each had a district assigned to him, 
wherein he was to exercise a more particular jurisdiction. 



60 



the church of Christ, which itself is overspread 
with light from heaven, diffuses its rays over the 
face of the whole earth, and yet its light is one 
and single which is thus diffused, nor is the unity 
of its body in any manner affected by the number 
of its members ; it extends indeed its fruitful 
branches throughout the whole world ; its various 
streams are far and near diffused ; but you may 
trace them all, however, to a single fountain ; 
they are all originally derived from one head, have 
all one original, and one fruitful mother was their 
common parent. 

5. In her bosom we are born, our growth is 
owing to the food which is thence administered to 
us, and the same spirit quickens us which enlivens 
her. The spouse of Christ will not play the 
harlot, her chastity is unblemished, she hath but 
one habitation, which she endeavoureth to preserve 
inviolate, equally free from guilt, and from the 
suspicion of it. In her custody, under her patron- 
age and protection we are trained up to the 
knowledge and enjoyment of God, in whose 
kingdom she assigns to her obedient children their 
respective interests ; whoever therefore is separated 
from the true Church of Christ, and joins himself 
to a false one, forfeits his title to the promises of 
the true : Nor can he ever attain the recompence 
propounded by Christ to his followers, who deserts 
his church. No ! For he becomes thence unsanc- 
tified, an alien, and even an open enemy. Our 



61 



blessed Lord hath given us in this matter a proper 
caution, where he saith : " He that is not with me, 
is against me, and he that gathereth not with me, 
scattereth abroad." Again he hath said : " I and 
my Father are one," and it is written of the 
Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, that " these three 
are one."* And can any one imagine, that a 
unity settled upon so firm a basis, and cemented 
by such sacred and awful bonds, shall allowably 
be broken in the church, through the jarring 
inclinations and affections of its different members ? 
He, in short, who shall presume to break it, who 
shall not with all his might endeavour to preserve 
it, will undergo the censure of breaking the law 
of God, and of having no regard to that holy 
faith which is the joint and equal care of the 
Father and of the Son. 

6. This representation of their unity, this 
inseparable connection of one with the other, is 
well exhibited to us in that passage of the gospel, 
where we are told that the coat of Christ was not 
rent nor divided, but the entire garment was 

* The authority of this text has been often disputed. The silence 
of the Greek MSS. and especially of the Alexandrian, is doubtless 
a great prejudice against it, the weight of which must have sunk 
its credit, had not Tertullian in his book against Praxeas, chap. 25, 
alluded to it, and our author here more directly quoted it : Cyprian 
would not say expressly, as here he does, it is written of the Father, 
Son, and Holy Ghost, that these three are one ; if there had been 
in his time no copy extant to bear him out in such a citation. Whether 
therefore we can, or cannot, account for the silence of the Greek MSS. 
we should not depart from one positive testimony, in a case of this nature, 
for the sake of one hundred negative ones. 



62 



delivered out whole upon the casting of lots who 
should have it. For thus the holy scripture speaks 
upon that occasion : " The coat was without 
seam, woven from the top throughout ; the soldiers 
said among themselves, let us not rend it, but 
cast Jots for it, whose it shall be." Its being 
without seam was a fit emblem of that undivided 
unity which cometh from above, from heaven, and 
from God who dwelleth there. Quite otherwise 
however we read of the division of the kingdom 
of Solomon. Ahijah the prophet, meeting King 
Jeroboam in the field, rent his garment in twelve 
pieces, and said : " Take thee ten pieces : for 
thus saith the Lord God of Israel, Behold, I will 
rend the kingdom out of the hands of Solomon, 
and will give ten tribes to thee : but he shall have 
one tribe for my servant David's sake, and for 
Jerusalem's sake, the city which I have chosen 
out of all the tribes of Israel." So we see, that 
when the twelve tribes of Israel were to be divided, 
the prophet Ahijah rent his garment. But now, 
as the followers of Christ are not to be divided, 
his coat, we have been told, was without seam, 
woven throughout, and accordingly was never to 
be rent, but to continue a very lively emblem, 
to us, of that inseparable union which ought to 
be maintained among his followers, who are 
emphatically said to have "put on the Lord Jesus." 

7. Who is there then amongst us so profligate 
and abandoned, so false to the trust reposed in 



63 



him, or so desperately in love with discord and 
dissention, as to imagine that the unity, which 
we have been taught is maintained in heaven, may 
be broken upon earth ? that the coat of Christ, 
which we have been told is seamless, will endure 
to be rent ? or that the church of Christ, which 
is always described to us as one only, can be 
split into more? To believe that this is possible 
is gross absurdity but to make any attempt 
towards it, is flagrant wickedness. Our Lord 
himself, one would suppose, had guarded suffi- 
ciently against any attempts or apprehensions of 
this nature, by expressly telling us, as he hath 
done in the gospel, that there should be " one 
fold and one shepherd." St. Paul hath inculcated 
our present doctrine, where he beseeches and 
exhorts the Corinthians, " by the name of our 
Lord Jesus Christ, that ye speak all the same 
thing, and that there be no divisions among you ; 
but that ye be perfectly joined together in the 
same mind and in the same judgment." And 
again he hath recommended to the Ephesians, 
<c forbearing one another in love, and endeavouring 
to keep the unity of the spirit in the bond of 
peace." In the house of God then, and in the 
church of Christ, none can continue who are 
not of one mind, who are not well disposed to a 
unity of affections, and to a simplicity of manners. 

8. Let no one imagine that a truly good man 
will ever quit the church of Christ. The wind is 



64 



not used to carry off the good wheat along with 
it ; nor will a storm tear up a tree, which is deeply 
and strongly rooted in the earth. It is the light 
and empty chaff which the wind scattereth ; and 
the trees, whose root is weak and unsettled are 
most commonly torn up by the fury of a storm. 
Of men like these, the apostle St. John hath pro- 
nounced, with a just severity, that " they went 
out from, but they were not of us ; for if they had 
been of us, they would no doubt have continued 
with us." This hath been heretofore, and still is, 
the grand source of heresy, that men of perverse 
minds have no regard to peace, are false to their 
trust, and no lovers of unity. These are things 
which our Lord permits and suffers, leaving to free 
agents the use and exercise of their proper liberty, 
that so the fidelity and perseverance of the 
righteous may be brought to their proper test, be 
set in a clear, advantageous light, and come off 
from the scrutiny with honour and approbation. 
This is the apostle's account of the matter, and he 
hath plainly acquainted us with the reason of this 
permission : " There must be also heresies among 
you, that they which are approved may be made 
manifest among you." The fidelity of some is 
hence approved ; and the insincerity of others is 
by the same touchstone discovered. Thus even 
before the day of judgment, the souls of the just 
and of the unjust are separated from each other, 
and the chaff and the wheat are already divided. 



65 



9. These are they whom the Spirit of God hath 
before-hand marked out in the Book of Psalms, as 
sitting in the seat of the scornful ; being indeed 
the very pest and bane of our religion, cunning in 
the art of deceitful words, very successful in their 
endeavours to corrupt the truth, spreading far and 
near the poison of their venomous tongues, whose 
" words will eat as doth a canker." Against the 
men of this complection our Lord heretofore 
warned his people, and endeavoured to reclaim 
them from following such erroneous guides, saying, 
" Hearken not unto the words of the prophets 
that prophesy unto you : they make you vain : 
they speak a vision of their own heart, and not out 
of the mouth of the Lord. They say still unto 
them that despise me, the Lord hath said, Ye shall 
have peace ; and they say unto every one that 
walketh after the imagination of his own heart, No 
evil shall come upon you. I have not sent these 
prophets, yet they ran : I have not spoken to 
them, yet they prophesied. But if they had stood 
in my counsel, and had caused my people to hear my 
words, then they should have turned them from 
their evil way, and from the evil of their doings." 

10. Let no one deceive himself with that 
saying of our Saviour, " Where two or three are 
gathered together in my name, there am I in the 
midst of them :" For these false interpreters, these 
corrupters of the gospel of Christ, set down the 
latter part, which they think for their turn, and 

F 



66 



leave oat the former which makes against them ; 
thus carefully inserting the one, and craftily sup- 
pressing the other. Our blessed Lord in this 
passage was recommending to his disciples unan- 
imity and peace : " I say unto you, that if two of 
you shall agree on earth as touching any thing that 
they shall ask, it shall be done for them of my 
Father which is in heaven ; for where two or three 
are gathered together in my name, there am I in 
the midst of them Here, then, he plainly shews 
himself more concerned for the unanimity of the 
supplicants, than for the number they should 
consist of : " If two of you (said he) shall agree 
whence we may observe that a mutual agreement 
was the foundation of all which followed, peace 
ushered in the promise, and the main design of 
this whole lesson was to instruct us in the duties 
of love and concord : But now with what tolerable 
propriety can he be said to perform his part of a 
mutual agreement, who disagrees with the body of 
Christ's church, and with the whole brotherhood 
thereunto belonging ? and how can " two or three" 
be thought " gathered together in the name of 
Christ," who are apparently disjoined from Christ, 
and from his blessed gospel, and forsake the 
fountain head* from whence the streams of religious 

* Our author could not mean any particular church, but the Church of 
Christ in general, which is the pillar and ground of truth. This the 
tenor of his argument most apparently supposes ; and this his next 
following words as clearly confirm ; otherwise, indeed, the fountain-head 
of truth, from whence, in fact, the streams of christian truth flowed out 
upon the world, was the Church of Jerusalem. 



67 



truth were spread throughout the world ? Our 
blessed Lord then declares, " Where two or three 
are gathered together in my name, there am 1 in 
the midst of* them as if he had said, " I am 
" ever in the midst of such as are plain and open- 
" hearted, peaceable and pious, and observers of 
" my law. These, though but two or three of 
" them, my gracious presence shall ever accom- 
" pany." Just so his presence accompanied the 
three young men in the fiery furnace, and as they 
walked before him, in godly sincerity, and were 
all of one mind, he refreshed them in the midst of 
the flames with the comforts of his Spirit. The 
same gracious presence, for the same reason, 
accompanied his two apostles in prison : " He 
opened the prison doors" for them, and gave them 
their liberty, that they might deliver that word of 
his to the people, of which they were such faithful 
and true preachers. Wherefore when he lays it 
down for a rule, and saith : " Where two or three 
are gathered together in rny name, there am I in 
the midst of them he who founded and formed 
the church, can with no justice be interpreted to 
mean the separation of any from it ; but rather he 
must be understood as upbraiding the betrayers of 
their trust with their dissention, as recommending 
peace to his faithful servants ; and as with this 
view, telling them that he would rather be in the 
midst of two or three agreeing in any thing they 
should ask of him, than with a far greater number 

F 2 



68 



of disagreeing supplicants ; that a prayer put up 
to him by a few in the unity of the spirit, and the 
bond of peace, would be more available than what 
should be offered by many with jarring affections 
and disunited hearts : When he was therefore 
prescribing a rule for prayer, he added the fol- 
lowing as a requisite condition of its success : 
" When ye stand praying, forgive, if ye have 
aught against any, that your Father also, which is 
in heaven, may forgive you your trespasses :" In 
the like manner he discouraged any from " coming 
to the altar" with a contentious spirit, bade him 
" first be reconciled to his brother and so 
returning with a peaceable disposition, he might 
"offer his gift" to God. 

1 1. What prospect of peace can be entertained 
by such as prove themselves enemies to their 
brethren ? If such should even suffer martyrdom 
for the name of Christ, they would not even 
with martyrdom expiate a crime of so black a 
dye. No sufferings can blot out the guilt of 
a sin so heinous, and so unpardonable, as that 
of schism. Moreover there can be no such 
thing as a martyr out of the church of Christ : 
and he can never attain to the kingdom 
of Christ, who deserts the church of Christ. 
Christ bequeathed us his peace at leaving us ; 
directed us to live together in peace and unity ; 
and never to violate its sacred bonds : So that he 
must never pretend to bear a proper testimony to 



69 



such a religion, no, not even by his death, who 
lives in variance and discord with his brethren. 
The apostle St. Paul hath intimated thus much to 
us, where he saith : " And though I have the gift 
of prophecy, and understand all mysteries, and 
all knowledge ; and though I have all faith, so 
that I could remove mountains, and have not 
charity, I am nothing. And though I bestow 
all my goods to feed the poor, and though 
I give my body to be burned, and have not 
charity, it profiteth me nothing." Charity must 
for ever bear its part in the kingdom of Christ, 
and be conspicuous in the unity and mutual agree- 
ment of christian brethren. Variance and discord 
can never enter into the kingdom of heaven, nor 
attain the promises of Christ, who hath said, 
" This is my commandment, that ye love one 
another as I have loved you ;" so that he can claim 
no manner of relation to, or interest in Christ, 
who hath betrayed and broken that law of love 
which Christ hath recommended. He, in short, 
who hath not charity, hath not God dwelling in 
him : It is the declaration of the apostle St. John, 
" That God is love ; and he that dwelleth in love, 
dwelleth in God, and God in him." They can 
never therefore be interpreted to dwell with God, 
who know not how to live in peace and unity with 
his church ; though they should be thrown into 
the fire, or be scorched in flames, or have their 
lives exposed to the fury of wild beasts ; such a 



70 



death will never be interpreted as a crown of their 
faith and constancy, but rather as a punishment of 
their betraying it, and of their departure from it ; 
it will not here be esteemed, as in other cases, an 
honourable end of a man, true to his religion, and 
firm to the interests of the gospel ; but rather as 
the obstinate death of a man abandoned to despair, 
and bent upon his own destruction. Such a man 
may be put to death, but he can never be entitled 
to the crown of martyrdom. 

12. A man may profess himself, if he will, a 
christian ; as the devil hath sometimes put on the 
likeness of Christ. A practice of his which our 
blessed Lord foretold to us in these words : 
" For many shall come in my name, saying, I am 
Christ, and shall deceive many." Now as the 
devil is not really Christ, though he deceives many 
into a belief that he is so, by boldly assuming his 
name ; so neither is he a christian, merely because 
he is called one, who adheres not with constancy 
to the truth of his Saviour's gospel. For to pro- 
phesy, and to cast out devils, and to perform 
mighty works and miracles, is an attainment as 
illustrious and magnificent as any besides ; yet 
he who is found possessed of it, becomes not thence 
entitled to the kingdom of heaven, unless he be 
found walking moreover in the right way, in the 
paths of righteousness and truth. Our Lord hath 
already pronounced upon the case of such, and 
said of them : " Many will say to me in that day, 



71 



Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in thy name ? 
and in thy name have cast out devils ? and in 
thy name done many wonderful works ? And 
then will I profess unto them, I never knew you : 
depart from me, ye that work iniquity." There 
is no way of recommending ourselves to the favour 
of God our judge, but that of righteousness ; we 
must obey his precepts, or we shall never become 
entitled* to our reward. When our Lord was 
giving a brief summary of christian duty, we find 
him thus saying : " Thou shalt love the Lord thy 
God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and 
with all thy mind. This is the first and great com- 
mandment And the second is like unto it, thou 
shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. On these two 
commandments hang all the law and the prophets." 
In which words he hath inculcated two points of 
the highest consequence, the unity of God and 
the love of our brethren ; and within the limits of 
these two precepts he hath couched the sum and 
substance of the law and of the prophets. But 
now what regard can he be thought to have 
for that unity and love, who in the heat of 
his mad dissention tears the very bowels of 
the church asunder, makes havoc of her faith, 

* Our author's words are, Pneceptis ejus & monitis obtemperanilum 
est, ut accipiant merita nostra mercedem. He had said before in book 3, 
to Quirinus, section 4. (In nullo gloriandum quando nostrum nihil sit,) 
that we are to boast of nothing, as having nothing which we can properly 
call our own ; nothing but what we received from God. So that God 
crowns his own work when he rewards our obedience. 



72 



confounds her peace, and profanes her most solemn 
mysteries ? 

13. This evil, my beloved brethren, had a very 
early root ; but now it hath attained a marvellous 
growth, and heresy and schism have spread their 
poison far and near ; for thus indeed the Holy 
Spirit of God, by the mouth of an apostle, hath 
foretold it should be towards the end of the world. 
" In the last days (saith he) perilous times shall 
come. For men shall be lovers of their own selves, 
covetous, boasters, proud, blasphemers, disobe- 
dient to parents, unthankful, unholy. Without 
natural affection, trucebreakers, false accusers, 
incontinent, fierce, despisers of those that are 
good ; traitors, heady, high-minded, lovers of 
pleasure more than lovers of God ; having a form 
of godliness, but denying the power thereof: from 
such turn away. For of this sort are they which 
creep into houses, and lead captive silly women 
laden with sins, led away with divers lusts ; ever 
learning, and never able to come to the knowledge 
of the truth. Now as Jannes and Jambres with- 
stood Moses, so do these also resist the truth : men 
of corrupt minds, reprobate concerning the faith ; 
but they shall proceed no further, for their folly 
shall be manifest unto all men, as their' s also was." 
This, in every part of it, we may now observe fulfilled ; 
and as the end of the world is now approaching 
towards us, both men and things are brought to 
their proper tests. As the rage of our great 



73 



adversary increaseth more and more against us, 
we grow more and more apt to be misled by error, 
to be elated with an ignorant and vain conceit, to 
be inflamed against each other with envy, to be 
blinded with lust, to be corrupted by a spirit of 
profaneness, to be puffed up with pride, to be 
provoked by mutual dissentions, and to be made 
outrageous by wrath and resentment. We, how- 
ever, should not be moved from our own con- 
stancy, nor disturbed in our minds upon observing 
that others are false to the trust reposed in them ; 
but our faith should rather be strengthened, upon 
finding that the event of things doth so exactly 
answer the prediction of them. As some have, 
in the worst sense, proved themselves to be what 
it was foretold they should be, so the rest of our 
brethren should thence beware of being like them, 
our Lord having given us beforehand a proper 
warning to that purpose ; " Take ye heed, saith he, 
behold I have foretold you all things. " Avoid, 
then, I beseech you, the men of this disposition ; 
hearken not to their pernicious discourses, but fly 
from them as you would from the rankest infection ; 
for the apostle hath warned us to this purpose 
where he observes that " evil communications 
corrupt good manners. ,, Our Lord hath directed 
us also to withdraw ourselves from such men, 
telling us, that "they be blind leaders of the 
blind ; and if the blind lead the blind, both shall 
fall into the ditch. ,, 



74 



14. Thus Corah, Dathan, and Abiram, who 
claimed to themselves a right of sacrificing in 
opposition to Moses and to Aaron the priest, were 
punished from heaven for their impious presump- 
tion ; the earth burst asunder and opened her mouth, 
and the enormous gap which was made by the 
ground thus cleft, swallowed them up alive. Nor did 
the wrath of God Almighty stop in that instance at 
the first authors of schism, but a fire went out 
from the Lord and consumed, with a speedy ven- 
geance, the two hundred and fifty men who had 
joined with them in their sacrilegious and mad 
attempt. In which example we have this admo- 
nition and intimation fairly given us, that 
whatsoever shall be attempted against the ordi- 
nances of God, by the wickedness and rashness 
of men, will be construed as an affront intended 
and offered to God himself. Thus when king 
Uzziah would not hearken to Azariah the priest, 
but would needs offer incense against his consent, 
and notwithstanding his intreaties to him to desist, 
the anger of God overtook him, and his forehead 
became leprous. And thus likewise it fared with 
the sons of Aaron, who offered strange fire, which 
the Lord commanded them not, for they died 
immediately before the Lord. 

15. It should not, my beloved brethren, be 
matter of surprise to any one to observe that some, 
even of the confessors themselves are led by the 
influence of example to fall into like enormities. 



75 



For the confession of Christ, in a dangerous junc- 
ture, doth by no means exempt any man from the 
snares of the devil, nor will our present state admit 
of our being privileged under any circumstances, 
from the common temptations and incursions of 
our ghostly enemy ; and, indeed, if indefectible 
virtue were a gift allotted to such a confession, we 
should never have so much reason, as we often 
have, to lament the manifold stains contracted 
afterwards by those who have made it. How 
great or how esteemable soever any confessor may 
be, 'tis certain he is neither greater, nor better, 
nor in higher account with God than Solomon 
was ; who yet retained the favour which he had 
with God no longer than whilst he continued 
walking in his ways ; which as soon as he forsook, 
he lost the favour thereupon depending ; and so 
we find it written, that " the Lord stirred up an 
adversary unto Solomon." For which reason the 
following caution is upon record : " Hold that fast 
which thou hast, that no man take thy crown/' 
This, now, was a danger which our Lord would 
surely not have suggested, nor in any manner 
intimated, that the crown, of righteousness could 
be ever forfeited, unless, upon the loss of that 
righteousness, the loss of the crown had followed 
as a necessary consequence ! Indeed, the confes- 
sion of Christ, in critical emergencies, is only one 
step towards glory ; but it hath by no means yet 
earned its crown : There is a proper degree of 



76 



praise which hath thence its rise, and its com- 
mencement ; but, to complete and perfect it, there 
must be a farther process. And since it is written, 
" He that endureth to the end shall be saved y 
whatsoever attainments are previous to such end, 
should be considered rather as steps which lead to 
the top of the ascent, than as the very top itself. 
A confessor, 'tis allowed, hath great advantages ; 
but then his danger and his duty rise in proportion 
to them ; for his adversary thence is the more 
enraged against him ; and he is the more obliged 
to a strict observance of the gospel, from having 
attained already to such a measure of grace and 
of glory by it. For our Lord hath thus determined 
upon the case before us : " For unto whomsoever 
much is given, of him shall much be required." 
Let no one therefore be tempted to venture his 
soul upon the credit of a confessor, or learn from 
his practice, injustice, arrogance, or breach of 
faith. As he is a confessor, he should be meek 
and humble, and modestly keep within the rank 
prescribed to him ; and as he is called a confessor 
of Christ, he should imitate Christ in his practice, 
as well as confess his name. Now since Christ 
hath declared that " whosoever shall exalt himself 
shall be abased, and he that shall humble himself 
shall be exalted and since he was himself 
exalted by his Father, because, though he was the 
word, and power, and wisdom of God, yet he 
humbled himself upon earth : how is it imaginable 



77 



that he should love an haughty disposition, who 
hath prescribed humility to us in his gospel, and 
himself received from his Father an ample recom- 
pence for his own humiliation unto death ? A 
confessor of Christ can never preserve his title to 
that glorious character, if the majesty and honour 
of Christ be through him blasphemed. The tongue 
which hath confessed Christ, should never after 
that speak evil. If it shall prove faulty in this 
point, and shall thence deserve the abhorrence of 
all good men ; if it shall lavish away the advantages 
of its laudable confession by unsuitable conversa- 
tion, and stain the life which it had before adorned ; 
if the man whom it hath made a confessor shall 
leave the church in which he became so, shall 
break the bonds of unity, and betray the faith, he 
was before so true to ; (if this, I say, shall be 
found his case) he must never flatter himself, as 
if his past confession were a mark of his being- 
elected to a crown of glory, inasmuch as his 
demerits have thence indeed the greater aggra- 
vation, and the punishment of his fall will, in 
reality, be the heavier for the height from which 
he is fallen. 

16. Our blessed Lord, we know, elected Judas 
to be in the number of his twelve apostles ; and 
yet did Judas after that betray him. Yet were not 
the faith and constancy of the other apostles shaken, 
because the traitor Judas revolted from their com- 
pany ; nor are the honour and sanctity of confessors 



78 



in this case sufferers, because the faith of some in 
that number could not stand the test. The blessed 
apostle hath put a case somewhat like the present, 
where he saith : " What if some did not believe ? 
shall their unbelief make the faith of God without 
effect ? God forbid : yea, let God be true, but 
every man a liar." The major part of our con- 
fessors have preserved their faith untainted and 
unshaken, and have governed themselves in all 
points by the rules of the gospel ; they have taken 
no single step injurious to the peace of the church 
as remembering that in the church they arrived at 
the honours due to their illustrious character ; and 
the firmness of their faith becomes hence entitled 
to the greater commendation, that they have 
avoided all participation of those men's sins, whose 
partners they had been in the honour of their 
glorious confession ; but with the advantage of a 
clear gospel light, and an untainted innocence, 
like that of their Lord and master, they have 
merited as high encomiums, for preserving the 
peace of his church inviolate, as before they had 
done by their successful conflict with his and their 
common enemy. 

17. My heart's desire, brethren, is, and I should 
rejoice if any exhortation or advice of mine might 
be so effectual, that no single soul should be lost 
out of the flock of Christ ; but that the church 
should see all her children united in one body, and 
safe within her bosom ; yet if the event of things 



79 



should prove so unhappy, that she should not 
prevail upon certain leaders of the schism, and 
heads of the faction, to quit their desperate courses, 
and to return into her pasture ; let others, however, 
who have been misled by them, through their own 
simplicity and undesigning error, or through the 
cunning craftiness of those who have lain in wait 
to deceive them ; (let such, I say,) disengage with 
the soonest from the snare they are involved in, 
return immediately from the error of their ways, 
and steer the course which will lead them to 
the kingdom of heaven. The apostle (we may 
observe) is very earnest in his exhortation to this 
purpose : " Now we command you, brethren, in 
the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that ye with- 
draw yourselves from every brother that walketh 
disorderly, and not after the tradition which he 
received of us." And again : " Let no man 
deceive you with vain words : for because of these 
things cometh the wrath of God upon the children 
of disobedience. Be not ye therefore partakers 
with them." Care must be taken to avoid the 
company of such offenders, we must even run out 
of it if we cannot otherwise decline it, lest whilst 
we join ourselves to such as walk disorderly, and 
follow them in their various wanderings and devi- 
ations, we also swerve from the way of truth, and 
entangle ourselves in the guilt of their transgres- 
sion. There is but one God, and one Christ, one 
church, one faith, and one entire body of christian 



so 



people, united to each other by the cement of a 
mutual concord. Now unity will not consist with 
division, nor will one body endure to have its 
bowels torn, or the continuity of its parts broken. 
Whatsoever shall be separated from the fountain 
of life, can have no life remaining in it, after 
having lost all communication with its vital prin- 
ciple. The Holy Spirit of God hath well admo- 
nished us, saying : " What man is he that desireth 
life, and loveth many days, that he may see good ? 
Keep thy tongue from evil, and thy lips from 
speaking guile. Depart from evil, and do good ; 
seek peace, and pursue it." He therefore who 
would be thought one of the children of peace, 
should seek and follow after it. He who is 
acquainted with the bond of charity, and is desirous 
of maintaining it, should refrain his tongue from 
the mischiefs of contention. Our blessed Lord, 
when his passion was near approaching, left this to 
us, amongst other excellent gifts : " Peace I leave 
with you, my peace I give unto you." This is 
then the blessed inheritance which our Lord hath 
bequeathed to us, and all his promises are sus- 
pended upon this condition ; wherefore if we claim 
to be heirs of Christ, let us abide in his peace ; if 
we pretend to be the children of God, we should 
be lovers of peace : " Blessed are the peace- 
makers, for they shall be called the children of 
God." The children of God should therefore be 
careful to answer their character; should be meek 



81 



in heart, open and innocent in their conversation, 
like-minded one towards another, and united 
together by the bonds of a mutual agreement and 
love. This was the state of the church under the 
apostles ; thus did the first converts to our holy 
religion observe the commandments of Christ, 
and maintain with each other the law of charity. 
And thus the holy scripture saith of them : " And 
the multitude of them that believed were of one 
heart and of one 80111." And again : " These all 
continued with one accord in prayer and supplica- 
tion, with the women, and Mary the mother of 
Jesus, and with his brethren." And to this was 
in great measure owing the success of their prayers ; 
therefore they might ask with confidence whatever 
they stood in need of at the throne of grace. 

18. But now amongst us the spirit of unity is 
very much broken, and with it that of charity is 
much weakened also. Formerly they sold their 
lands and houses, and purchased for themselves a 
treasure in heaven ; giving the price of them to 
be disposed of by the apostles for the use of the 
poor. The case at present is so far altered, that 
we do not so much as expend upon these occasions 
the tithe of our possessions ; but instead of selling 
what we have, as our Lord directed us, we enlarge 
our estates by continual purchases. And are the 
firmness and alacrity of our faith indeed thus 
decayed and withered? The ghostly strength of 
believers thus weakened and enervated ? Well 

G 



82 



might our Lord, in respect of such times as these, 
observe and ask in his gospel : " When the son of 
man cometh, shall he find faith on the earth ?" 
We see the case stands as he foretold it would. 
Jn any fear of God, in any regards to the law of 
righteousness, in any proofs of brotherly love, in 
any works of charity, there are no marks of such 
a faith appearing; no one seems to have any 
apprehensions upon him of futurity, nor of the 
wrath of God, which is to be revealed from heaven 
in the great and terrible day of his coming ; nor of 
that dreadful punishment which awaits unbelievers ; 
nor of those eternal torments which are reserved 
for the betrayers of their faith. It were impossible 
we should not be afraid of these things, if we in 
earnest believed them ; we do not therefore fear 
them, because we do not indeed believe them ; if 
we did believe them, we could not but beware of 
them ; and if we did beware of them, we should 
certainly escape them. Let us then rouse up the 
powers of our faith and vigilance ; let us lay aside 
all sloth and drowsiness, and be intent upon our 
master's will. Let us be such as he would have 
us, and hath directed us to be, saying, " Let 
your loins be girded about, and your lights burning, 
and ye yourselves like unto men that wait for their 
lord, when he will return from the wedding; that 
when he cometh and knocketh, they may open 
unto him immediately. Blessed are those servants, 
whom the Lord, when he cometh, shall find watch- 



83 



ing." We therefore, my brethren, should have 
our loins thus girded ; and our light should thus 
shine forth, that so we may be led out of the dark- 
ness of this world, into the glorious light of a 
better life. We should look out with an holy 
vigilance for the coming of our Lord, which, we 
are told beforehand, will be sudden ; that when 
he knocketh, he may find us awake and watching 
for him, and may crown our faith and diligence 
with the glories of his heavenly kingdom. 



Q 2 



TEACT II. 



ON THE LORD'S PRAYER. 

This tract seems to have been written about the beginning 
of the year 252. The design of it was not very 
foreign from that of the preceding ; and as the Unity 
of the Churh will be found to have been much in our 
author's thoughts^ whilst he was writing his discourse 
upon the Lord's Prayer, so his discourse upon that 
prayer hath a notable tendency to promote such unity. 
The antients greatly extolled this performance. 
Augustin frequently refers to it ; and in his book of 
Grace and Freewill, exhorts and intreats his readers 
that they would attentively peruse what the blessed 
Cyprian had written upon the Lord's Prayer, that they 
would labour to understand it as far as they were able, 
and commit as much of it as they could to memory. 

1. The precepts of the gospel, my beloved 
brethren, are to be considered as the lessons of 
God to us, as the foundations of our hope, and 
the supports of our faith ; as spiritual consolations 
to us, shewing us the paths of righteousness, and 
setting us forward in the way of salvation : for 
whilst with teachable and willing minds we receive 
upon earth the instructions hence conveyed to us, 
we are led on insensibly to the kingdom of heaven. 
The will of God had been revealed to the world 
before in some competent measure by his servants 



85 



the prophets ; but now the Son of God, who was 
the word by which those prophets themselves 
were taught to speak, hath revealed it far more 
copiously and more clearly ; he hath not now, as 
formerly, directed his way to be prepared for 
him; but he hath come amongst us in his own 
person, and pointed to us the way we should 
henceforwards walk in ; that so we, who had 
hitherto sat in darkness and in the shadow of 
death, without any clue to lead or to direct us, 
might keep close td the. paths of life, through the 
help of his gracious guidance and illumination. 
Now amongst other excellent precepts and rules 
of living, whereby he hath consulted our eternal 
welfare, he hath also given us a form of prayer ; 
and hath instructed us in clear and express terms 
what we should pray for. 

2. He who gave us life hath taught us how to 
pray, with the same indulgence and benignity 
wherewith he hath conferred upon us numerous 
other benefits and mercies ; and when we address 
the Father in the language of the Son, and in 
the manner which the Son hath recommended, 
without all perad venture the Father will hear us. 
The Son had foretold in his lifetime, that " the 
hour cometh, and now is, when the true worshippers 
shall worship the Father in spirit and in truth 
and he hath now fulfilled his own prediction ; thus 
we who, from the satisfaction made by him to his 
Father's justice have received the spirit of truth, 



86 



are taught by him to pray in spirit and in truth. 
For what prayer can any man think more spiritual 
than a prayer which is given us by Christ himself, 
who also sent the Holy Spirit to us ? What 
prayer can any man imagine to have more truth 
in it than that which came out of his mouth, who 
is truth itself? Wherefore, my beloved brethren, 
let us pray as God himself hath been pleased to 
teach us : those petitions are most likely to be well 
received by him which are drawn in his form, and 
by his order, and conceived in the very words of 
his own dear Son. The words of a Son so dear 
cannot but be acceptable to a Father so indulgent. 
So that when we pray to God, he who dwelleth 
in our hearts, should also direct our lips. And 
since we have him for our " advocate with the 
Father/' to make intercession for our sins ; when 
we, wretched sinners, are begging the pardon of 
God for our offences, we should chuse to do it in 
the words of our righteous advocate. For since 
we have a gracious assurance from him, that 
"whatsoever we shall ask of the Father in his 
name, he will give it to us;" with how much 
greater success and efficacy are we likely to ask 
when we not only use his name in asking, but also 
his very words ? 

3. Now when we are presenting our petitions to 
the throne of grace, we should do it with reverence 
and godly fear. We should consider ourselves as 
standing then in the more immediate presence of 



87 



God ; and therefore the gesture of our bodies, 
and the modulation of our voices, should be formed 
into a fitness for bearing his observation. For as 
it is a mark of confidence and boldness to be 
clamorous and noisy, so there is a certain decorum 
in the tone of the voice, which speaks the modesty 
of an humble petitioner. Our Lord hath therefore 
recommended secret prayer to us, that it should 
be offered in our most private retirements, in our 
closets and our chambers, as most agreeable to our 
belief and persuasion of God's omnipresence, that 
he beholds and regards us all, and filleth all places, 
even the darkest corners, with the glory of his 
majesty, as it is written of him : " Am I a God 
at hand, saith the Lord, and not a God afar off ? 
Can any hide himself in secret places that I shall 
not see him ? saith the Lord. Do not I fill heaven 
and earth? saith the Lord." And again : "The 
eyes of the Lord are in every place, beholding 
the evil and the good." These were the rules 
observed by Hannah (herein no improper type of 
the christian church,) who prayed to God in the 
retirement of her soul, not in loud and clamorous 
strains, but in secret and silent ejaculations : Yet 
though her prayer was secret, her faith was not 
so ; if her voice did not speak for her, yet her 
heart did; she knew that God would hear her 
addressing him in such a manner ; she asked in 
faith, and therefore obtained her request. Thus 
the holy scripture hath represented her case and 



88 



circumstances, saying, that "she spake in her 
heart, only her lips moved, but her voice was not 
heard And the Lord hearkened unto her. 
We read also in the book of psalms : " Commune 
with your own heart upon your bed, and be still." 
Now whosoever pretends to worship God should 
bear in his mind the manner wherein the publican 
is represented praying in the temple together with 
the pharisee, neither with eyes nor hands lifted 
up to heaven ; as if he were confidently sure of 
acceptance there ; but, " smiting upon his breast," 
and acknowledging his sinfulness, he besought the 
mercies of God to pardon and succour him. 
The pharisee was much delighted with, and 
depended much upon, his own performances; and 
accordingly the other was thought a fitter object 
of God's acceptance, who placed not the hope of 
it in any assurances of his own innocence (since 
there is none who sinneth not) but humbly con- 
fessed his sin to God ; and God, who is ever ready 
to extend his compassions to the meek and contrite, 
hearkened to his prayer. Wherefore, my beloved 
brethren, since these things are taught us out of 
the holy scriptures ; and since we are thence 
instructed how we ought to pray ; let us learn from 
the same authority, what we are to pray for : 
" After this manner therefore pray ye : Our 
Father which art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. 
Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done in earth, 
as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily 



89 



bread. And forgive us our debts, as we forgive 
our debtors. And lead us not into temptation, 
but deliver us from evil : Amen." 

4. The first thing hence observable is that our 
great preacher of peace and unity enjoined not his 
prayer to be used by any man for himself alone, 
or for his own particular occasions, exclusive of 
other men's interests and concernments. We are 
not taught by it to say, My Father which art in 
heaven ; nor, give me this day my daily bread ; 
nor doth any man ask for his own debts in particu- 
lar, that they may be forgiven him ; nor that he 
only may not be led into temptation, or delivered 
from evil. No. Our prayer is general, and when 
we pray, we pray not for any single person, but 
for our whole body ; because, indeed, all christian 
people are but one body. God, who is the author 
of peace and concord, and hath recommended 
unity to us in such a pressing manner, would have 
one to pray for all, even as he himself vouchsafed 
to be our commom representative, and bore us 
all* in one single person. This rule of prayer we 
find observed by the three youths when shut up in 
the fiery furnace ; they perfectly accorded together 
in a unity of spirit and of prayer. Then " they 



* Quomodo in uno omnes ipse portavit, viz. by being our representa- 
tive, and the common head of so many members ; by wearing our nature, 
and being found in fashion as a man ; and by suffering in his own person 
for us all. 



90 



three (saith the holy scripture) sang an hymn to 
God, and blessed him, as it were, with one mouth" 
They spake in their prayer as if they had all but 
one mouth to speak with ; and yet Christ had not 
then appeared in the flesh to teach them how they 
should pray ; but their words were therefore 
powerful and successful, and they obtained by 
them what they asked for, because God is ever 
ready to hear a prayer like theirs, accompanied 
with holy dispositions, and uttered in the unity of 
the spirit, and the bond of peace. Thus we learn 
that the apostles also prayed with the rest of our 
Lord's disciples after his ascension. " These all 
continued with one accord in prayer and supplica- 
tion, with the women, and Mary the Mother of 
Jesus, and with his brethren." They continued, 
it is said, with one accord in prayer ; an example, 
this, and a double proof of their fervency in it, 
and of their unity ; for God, indeed, " who maketh 
men to be of one mind in a house," will admit 
none into the mansions of eternity, but such only 
as are of "one accord in prayer." Now it is 
admirable to consider, my beloved brethren, how 
many matters of the greatest moment are collected 
together and contained in the Lord's prayer ; how 
few are the words, and how mighty is their sense 
and energy; insomuch that the whole sum and 
substance of the gospel is indeed there abridged, 
and reduced within the narrow compass of that 
excellent formulary ! 



91 



5. Thus, saith our Lord, pray ye : " Our Father 
which art in heaven." He who is become a new 
man, and is regenerated, and reconciled to his 
God through the grace of the gospel, beginneth 
very properly his address to God, with the appella- 
tion of Father, as having so lately commenced his 
son. "As many as received him, to them 
gave he power to become the sons of God, 
even to them who believe on his name." He 
therefore who hath believed on his name, and 
is thereby become the son of God, ought hence 
to take his rise, and, as a son, to pray with 
gratitude and thanksgiving, to his " Father 
which is in heaven." Nor is it enough, we 
may observe, my beloved brethren, to call him 
simply, " Father which is in heaven but we 
add, and say moreover, " Our Father, i. e. the 
Father of all believers of all who through 
him are sanctified, and renewed, at their second 
birth by baptismal grace, and thence are become 
his children. This is, yet farther, a character and 
appellation which reflects severely upon the Jews, 
who not only refused to believe in Christ, though 
foretold to them by their prophets, and sent to 
them in the first place before all others, but treated 
him besides with all imaginable contempt and 
scorn, and put him at last to a cruel death. They 
therefore can no longer call God their Father ; our 
Lord himself having confuted their pretension, 
and plainly referred them to their proper original, 



92 



saying of them and to them : " Ye are of your 
father the devil, and the lusts of your father ye 
will do. He was a murderer from the beginning, 
and abode not in the truth, because there is no 
truth in him." God hath also complained, with 
indignation, by the mouth of his prophet Isaiah, 
saying : " I have nourished and brought up 
children, and they have rebelled against me. The 
ox knoweth his owner, and the ass his master's 
crib ; but Israel doth not know, my people doth 
not consider. Ah sinful nation, a people laden 
with iniquity, a seed of evil doers, children that 
are corrupters : they have forsaken the Lord, they 
have provoked the Holy One of Israel to anger." 
Wherefore, to upbraid these men with their per- 
verseness, we christians, when we pray, say Our 
Father, because he is now become ours, and bears 
no longer this relation to them who have so con- 
temptuously forsaken him. Nor indeed can any 
sinners, continuing in a state of guilt, with pro- 
priety be called his children ; but they whose sins 
are forgiven them, may fairly be allowed the title, 
as having moreover a claim by promise to life and 
immortality. Our Lord hath pronounced upon 
the case of the one and the other to the following 
purpose : " Whosoever committeth sin is the 
servant of sin \ and the servant abideth not in the 
house for ever, but the Son abideth for ever." 
What acknowledgments therefore shall we make 
to God for the immensity of his love and his 



93 



goodness towards us, who hath directed our prayer 
to be addressed to him under the name and cha- 
racter of our Father. A relation this so honourable 
to us, that none of us should ever have presumed 
to claim it in our addresses to him, had he not 
expressly permitted and directed us so to pray. 
Wherefore, my beloved brethren, we ought to 
remember, when we call God our Father, that we 
are most particularly thence obliged to behave like 
his children ; that as we rejoice in the title of his 
children, he may also have reason to be pleased 
with his relation to us as our Father. We should 
consider ourselves as the temples of God, and our 
lives should proclaim for us that he dwelleth in us. 
Our conversation should speak the spirit by which 
we are actuated ; and as we profess to have entered 
upon a spiritual and heavenly life, we should think 
and do every thing within the character we have 
so assumed ; we should remember that notable 
declaration made by God : " Them that honour 
me I will honour ; and they that despise me shall 
be lightly esteemed as well as what the apostle 
St. Paul hath observed to the Corinthians : " Ye 
are bought with a price, therefore glorify God in 
your body and in your spirit, which are God's. " 

6. We next proceed and say, "hallowed be thy 
name not that thereby we wish any accessions 
of holiness to God, or suggest a possibility of his 
receiving any such accessions from our prayers ; 
what we ask of him here amounts to no more than 



94 

this, that his name may be hallowed in us. But 
by whom, it may be asked, can God be hallowed 
or sanctified, who is himself the great and only 
true sanctifier ? Yet since he hath said, " be ye 
holy, for I am holy we, in conformity to this 
command, desire of him, that, as we have been 
sanctified by his holy baptism, we may persevere 
in that holiness which was then conferred on us ; 
and this is, surely, no improper subject for our 
daily prayer, since indeed we do all stand in need 
of a daily sanctification ; that the sins which we 
daily commit may thence be daily cleansed and 
done away. What sort of sanctification that is, 
which the grace of God confers on us, and in 
what consisting, the apostle hath fairly intimated 
where he tells the Corinthians : " Neither forni- 
cators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, 
nor abusers of themselves with mankind, nor 
thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, 
nor extortioners, shall inherit the kingdom of God. 
And such were some of you ; but ye are washed, 
but ye are sanctified, but ye are justified in the 
name of the Lord Jesus, and by the Spirit of our 
God.'' Observe that he saith, " we are sanctified 
in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, and by the 
Spirit of our God." We therefore desire of him 
that this sanctification may be continued to us, 
and since our Lord and judge hath admonished 
the person healed by him to beware of sinning any 
more, lest a worse thing should come unto him, 



95 



therefore we persevere in this prayer to God ; 
therefore we make it each day and night the 
continual subject of our request to him, that those 
enlivening and quickening influences which we 
first received from his grace, may be continued to 
us through his favourable protection. 

7. We go on, and make it our farther request, 
that his kingdom may come ; where our meaning 
is, that the kingdom of God may be exhibited to 
us, and that we may have our part in it, as before 
we had asked that his name might be hallowed 
in us. For there is no time in truth and strictness 
wherein he doth not actually reign ; nor can that 
be properly said to have had a beginning which 
was from all eternity, and shall continue for ever. 
We therefore beseech him that the kingdom may 
come wherein we are interested, which God hath 
promised, and Christ hath purchased for us with 
his blood ; that we who have lived in this world as 
servants, may reign hereafter together with Christ 
our head, as he hath assured us, saying, " Come 
ye blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom pre- 
pared for you from the foundation of the world." 
Now he who hath once renounced the world is 
above its honours, and values no kingdoms of the 
world which he hath so renounced : He therefore 
who thus hath devoted himself to God and Christ, 
asks not an earthly, but a heavenly kingdom. 
And there is need, in reality, of our continual 
prayer and supplication to God, that we forfeit 



96 



not our interest, as the Jews have done, in this 
kingdom of heaven ; of whose case, with its 
consequences, our Lord hath pronounced in the 
following manner : " Many shall come from the 
east and west, and shall sit down with Abraham, 
and Isaac, and Jacob, in the kingdom of heaven. 
But the children of the kingdom shall be cast into 
outer darkness; there shall be weeping and gnashing 
of teeth." In which passage he plainly intimates, 
that the Jews were once the children of the king- 
dom, viz. so long as they continued to be the 
children of God ; but, as soon as ever they forfeited 
their filial relation, they forfeited with it their title 
to the kingdom. Wherefore we christians, who 
in their place and stead apply to God as our Father, 
pray to him likewise, that his kingdom may come. 

8. We add in the next place our desire to God, 
that his will may be done in earth as it is in heaven ; 
by which we mean not to express any inclination 
that God may do his own, but that we may do his 
will ; since there is no one who can hinder God 
from doing what or how he pleases : But since 
the devil is always throwing in his obstacles to 
prevent the obedience of all our powers to the will 
of God, we intreat and beseech him, that his will 
may be done in us, and by us ; and for this purpose 
the concurrence of his will, viz. of his help and 
protection is necessary to us, because no man of 
himself is sufficient to help himself, but his preser- 
vation and safety must be all ascribed to the mercy 



97 



and grace of God. Thus our Lord hath given us 
a specimen of the infirmities of that human nature 
which he put on, saying, " Father, if it be possible 
let this cup pass from me." But that he might 
likewise bequeath to his disciples an example of 
resigning their will to God's, he presently sub- 
joined, " Nevertheless, not as I will, but as thou 
wilt." And again he hath elsewhere declared to 
the same purpose : " I came down from heaven 
not to do mine own will, but the will of him that 
sent me." Since therefore the Son of God was 
thus exactly obedient to his Father's will, how 
much more should the servant be so to his master's 
will ? Thus St. John .hath also advised us to do 
the will of God: "Love not the world, neither 
the things which are in the world. If any man 
love the world, the love of the Father is not in 
him. For all that is in the world, the lust of the 
flesh, and the lust of the eyes, and the pride of 
life, is not of the Father, but of the world. And 
the world passeth away, and the lust thereof ; but 
he that doeth the will of God abideth for ever." 
And hence it appears that if we would abide for 
ever, we must do the will of God, who himself 
abideth for ever." 

9. Now the will of God is legible in the doctrine 
and example of Christ our Saviour, viz. humility 
in our deportment, a steady perseverance in our 
faith, a reserve and modesty in our words, justice 
and charity in all our actions, strictness and 

H 



98 



exactness in our whole behaviour; to have no 
notion of doing an injury, and patiently to bear 
one when done to us ; to maintain peace and unity 
one towards another; to love God with all our 
hearts; to love him, I say, as our Father, and at 
the same time to fear him as our God ; to prefer 
nothing before Christ our Saviour, who preferred 
nothing before us ; to abide in his life immovably, 
and to bear his cross with fidelity and courage ; 
when the honour of his name is the thing dis- 
puted, then to confess it with constancy, as we 
have occasion to speak of it ; to stand by it with 
confidence when put to the torture for it ; and to 
bear the most cruel death with patience when 
called to it, in view of the crown held forth to 
such our perseverance. This is indeed to manifest 
our desire of being joint-heirs with Christ. This 
is truly to perform the commandments of God, 
and to fulfil the will of our Father which is in 
heaven. 

10. Now we desire of God that his will may be 
done, as in heaven, so likewise on earth ; both 
which are of great importance to our advantage 
and salvation ; for we ourselves do in some manner 
constitute that heaven and that earth, since our 
bodies are of a terrestrial, and our souls of a celestial 
extract; and our petition bears that the will of 
God may be done in both, viz. in our souls and in 
our bodies. For there is indeed a perpetual war, 
and a daily struggle between our flesh and spirit, 



99 



insomuch that we do not what we would do ; our 
spirit aspiring after those things which are above, 
whilst our flesh hankers after the things on earth. 
Wherefore our earnest request to God in this case 
is, that by his favourable assistance these two 
jarring principles may be brought to some agree- 
ment with each other ; and the soul, which through 
his grace is regenerate, may by these means be 
saved, whilst his will is done both in our bodies 
and in our spirits. This is at large declared by 
the apostle, where he tells us : " The flesh lusteth 
against the spirit, and the spirit against the flesh ; 
and these are contrary the one to the other ; so 
that ye cannot do the things that ye would. Now 
the works of the flesh are manifest, which are these ; 
adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lasciviousness, 
idolatry, witchcraft, hatred, variance, emulations, 
wrath, strife, seditions, heresies, envyings, mur- 
ders, drunkenness, revellings, and such like; of 
the which I tell you before, as I have also told 
you in time past, that they which do such things 
shall not inherit the kingdom of God. But the 
fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longs uffering, 
gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance." 
Wherefore we make it the subject of our instant 
and daily prayer to God, that the will of God, 
with respect to our own actions and dispositions, 
may be done both in heaven and earth ; since it is 
the will of God that earthly things should give 
place to heavenly ; that things of a divine and 

H 2 



100 



spiritual nature should always have, as they well 
deserve, the pre-eminence. 

11. We proceed yet farther in our prayer, and 
say, " Give us this day our daily bread. " Which 
may be understood either in a figurative or a 
literal sense ; and in which way soever of these 
we take it, we may find our account in either 
acceptation. For Christ is indeed the bread of 
life, and he is not so to all, but to us only ; 
wherefore, as we say " Our Father," because God is 
the Father of such as know and believe on him ; 
so we call this bread " our daily bread," inasmuch as 
Christ is our bread ; ours, I say, who stand so 
nearly related to him by a participation of his 
body. Our Lord himself hath told us, saying, 
" I am the living bread which came down from 
heaven: if any man eat of this bread, he shall 
live for ever : and the bread that I will give is my 
flesh, which I will give for the life of the world." 
When therefore he saith, that " if any man will 
eat of this bread, he shall live for ever," as it is 
evident that they are actually living whose faith 
entitles them to a participation of the holy eucharist, 
and who in that awful rite receive into their hands 
his sacred body ; so it is a fit subject of our prayer 
and caution that we may not be separated from 
the body of Christ ; since our Lord has warned us 
in his gospel, saying, " Except ye eat the flesh of 
the Son of Man, and drink his blood, ye have no 
life in you." We desire therefore that our bread, 



101 



i. e. Christ, may be daily given us ; that we who 
live at present and abide in Christ, may go on to 
do so, may not lose those sanctifying influences 
which flow from his body, when received by such 
as are duly entitled to a participation of it. 

12. There is yet another interpretation to be 
made of this petition ; and we may with propriety 
enough be understood to mean by it, a request to 
God, that he would furnish us with food convenient 
or sufficient for us; which is a very becoming 
desire from those, who in their solemn profession 
of the christian faith, have renounced the w r orld, 
with all its pomps and riches, according to that 
declaration of our Lord : " Whosoever forsaketh 
not all that he hath, he cannot be my disciple." 
He therefore who upon these terms enters into the 
service of Christ, and follows his Master's direction 
in forsaking all that he hath, should not extend 
his desires nor his cares beyond a provision for his 
daily bread, our Lord having in another passage 
of his gospel thus admonished us : " Take no 
thought for the morrow, for the morrow shall take 
thought for the things of itself, sufficient unto the 
day is the evil thereof." A disciple of Christ doth 
therefore ask for the food of a single day, as being 
forbidden to take any thought for the morrow : 
And it is indeed quite out of rule, and a direct 
repugnancy to our professions, who beseech 
Almighty God that his kingdom may come, to 
express at the same time any fondness for this 



102 



world, or any desires of living a great while in it. 
Thus the apostle hath advised and instructed us, 
and thereby hath given great assistance to our 
faith and hope, saying : " For we brought nothing 
into this world, and it is "certain we can carry 
nothing out. And having food and raiment let 
us be therewith content. But they that will be 
rich fall into temptation and a snare, and into 
many foolish and hurtful lusts, which drown men 
in destruction and perdition. For the love of 
money is the root of all evil : which while some 
coveted after, they have erred from the faith, and 
pierced themselves through with many sorrows." 
In which words he intimates, that riches are not 
only improper objects of desire, but that they are 
dangerous too ; that they are at the root of many 
flattering and delusive mischiefs, through which 
advantage is taken of our ignorance to deceive 
and hurt us : Wherefore we find God rebuking 
the foolish rich man in the gospel, who boasted 
of his great abundance, and vaunted much upon 
a view of his plentiful fortune : " Thou fool, this 
night shall thy soul be required of thee ; then 
whose shall those things be which thou hast pro- 
vided ?" Great joy he had conceived to himself 
from the reflections he had made upon his wealth 
and substance, when he was yet to die that very 
night, and the provision he was so fond of could 
be no longer serviceable, when the life they were 
to sustain was just upon the point of failing him. 



103 



Our Lord hath recommended a quite contrary 
practice, and taught the man who would " be 
perfect, to go and sell what he hath and give it to 
the poor, that he may have treasure in heaven." 
Such a man, he saith, may follow him, and at an 
humble distance may share, to some degree, in 
the honour of his sufferings, who is freed from the 
trouble of worldly incumbrances, expedite and 
ready for any motion, and so follows his treasure, 
which he hath sent before him, to his heavenly 
master ; which that we may all be prepared for, 
we are taught thus to pray, and from the tenor of 
our prayer, are instructed what we ought to be. 
For indeed it is impossible that a good man should 
be in want of his daily bread. It is expressly 
promised, " the Lord will not suffer the soul of the 
righteous to famish," And again it is written : 
I have been young, and now am old ; yet have I not 
seen the righteous forsaken, nor his seed begging 
their bread." And our Lord hath thus encou- 
raged our dependence upon him in the following 
words : " Take no thought, saying, what shall we 
eat ? or, what shall we drink ? or, wherewithal 
shall we be clothed ? For after all these things 
do the Gentiles seek ; for your heavenly Father 
knoweth that ye have need of all these things. 
But seek ye first the kingdom of God and his 
righteousness, and all these things shall be added 
unto you." He promiseth, we see, that every 
thing else of this kind and nature shall be added 



104 



to those who seek the kingdom of God and his 
righteousness. For since all things are God's, he 
who hath God will have all things with him, if he 
on his part be not wanting in his duty to God. 
Thus when Daniel was shut up in the den of lions, 
by the command of the king, he was preserved 
amongst hungry beasts, which had no power to 
hurt him. Elijah, we find, was miraculously 
supported in his retirement ; the ravens supplied 
him with food, and birds ministered to him when 
the storm of a persecution had driven him into 
solitude ; which suggests to us a fit occasion of 
observing with astonishment and abhorrence those 
excesses of cruelty which men exercise towards 
men like themselves ; they savagely lie in wait for 
each other's lives, which even wild beasts have 
spared, and the birds of the air supported. 

13. After this we go on to deprecate the 
vengeance of God against our sins, saying : " and 
forgive us our debts as we also forgive our debtors.' 9 
Next after the necessary refreshments of food and 
sustenance, we ask the pardon of our sins, that 
he who is fed by God, may also live in him ; and 
that a due provision may be made* not only for 
the life which now is, but for that eternal life to 
which access for us is open, upon the remission of 
our sins, Great is the wisdom, the necessity, and 
the advantage of being directed to beg pardon 
for our sins, and thereby to acknowledge ourselves 
sinners : since whilst we thus ask forgiveness, our 



105 



consciences are very profitably awakened into a 
sense of guilt. That no man may flatter himself 
with any pleasing notions of his own innocence 
(which is indeed no man's privilege, and by pre- 
tending to it he would really merit the greater 
damnation) therefore every man is here admonished 
and instructed to pray daily to God for mercy, 
which is a strong intimation to us all that we daily 
stand in need of it. Sto John accordingly in his 
epistle thus advised us : " If we say that we have 
no sin we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not 
in us ; but if we confess our sins, God is faithful 
and just to forgive us our sins." Both the points 
of privilege and of duty are herein comprehended \ 
we are here directed to pray for the pardon of 
our sins, and we have the promise of forgiveness 
upon our thus asking it. And therefore he hath 
added, God is faithful, and so will forgive us, 
i. e. he will be just and true to the promise he 
hath made us of so forgiving us. For he who 
hath taught us to implore the mercies of God for 
the debts we have contracted to, and for the sins 
we have committed against him, hath likewise 
undertook, that those mercies shall not fail us, 
and that the pardon shall be granted upon our 
humble petition. 

14. But to all these promises there is affixed a 
condition, which binds us to performance, and we 
can no otherwise ask the forgiveness of our debts, 
with any hope of a favourable audience, than as 



106 



we forgive our debtors ; we are thence indeed 
assured, that we shall not obtain what we ask for, 
with regard to our own offences, except we deal 
out the same measure to those who have offended 
us. We are accordingly told by our Lord and 
Saviour in words express, that " with what mea- 
sure ye mete, it shall be measured to you again." 
And we may observe moreover in the gospel, that 
the servant who had all his debt forgiven him by 
his master, and afterwards would not forgive his 
fellow-servant, was cast into prison. And what 
Christ hath thus hinted to us in the way of figure 
and parable, he hath moreover confirmed by the 
weight and authority of express precept : " When 
ye stand praying, forgive, if ye have aught against 
any ; that your Father also which is in heaven 
may forgive you your trespasses : But if ye do 
not forgive, neither will your Father which is in 
heaven forgive your trespasses." There will be 
no excuse, and you will have nothing to complain 
of at the day of judgment, when the sentence 
you have passed upon others shall light upon your 
own head, and you suffer precisely in your own 
person, what you have determined to be just and 
equitable in the case of others. The will of 
God concerning us is, that we should be of one 
mind in his house, and live together in peace and 
unity ; and such as our second birth hath made 
us, such he would have us continue ; as we then 
commenced the children of God, he would 



107 



therefore obtain of us to abide in his peace ; and 
as we are united together by one Spirit, it is fit 
we should be like-minded, and agree together in 
one common sentiment. Thus we are admonished 
that God will not accept the offering of a man 
who is at enmity with his brother, but bids him 
"go his way, and be first reconciled to his 
brother," that God may favourably hear his 
prayer, when offered up to him with pacific dispo- 
sitions. The sacrifice indeed which is most accept- 
able to God, is our mutual agreement and brotherly 
love, and such a union of christian people to 
each other, as may in some measure resemble 
that strict inseparable unity, of Father, Son, and 
Holy Ghost. In those early examples of sacrifice 
offered to God by Cain and Abel, we do not find 
that their gifts were so much regarded, as their 
hearts ; and his oblations were best accepted, 
whose dispositions were best approved. The mild 
and righteous Abel came before God with a pure 
and perfect heart ; and hath taught us therefore 
to bring our gifts to the altar, as he did, with a 
fear of God accompanying us, with upright hearts, 
like his ; and with the strictest regard to righteous- 
ness and peace. He, who offered such a sacrifice 
to God, well deserved the subsequent honour 
which was conferred upon him, of being offered 
up himself a sacrifice to God ; of leading the van 
in the glorious company of martyrs ; and of being 
the first fruits of those who should afterwards 



108 



follow our Lord in his passion, as having before- 
hand resembled him in his peaceable and righteous 
dispositions. Such as he, are the men to whom 
our Lord allows the privilege of the martyr's 
crown ; these are they whose blood, as well as 
their Lord's and Master's, is to be avenged in the 
day of judgment. But he, who lives at enmity 
with his brethren, cannot atone for the guilt of 
his sin, as the apostle hath expressly declared, no 
not by suffering for the name of Christ ; since it 
is also written, that " he who hateth his brother 
is a murderer and a murderer cannot live with 
God, or have any part in the kingdom of heaven. 
It is impossible he should dwell with Christ, who 
chooses rather to imitate Judas than his Master : 
And what sort of guilt must that be, which the 
baptism of blood cannot wash away ! How 
heinous must be that crime, which even mar- 
tyrdom itself is not allowed to expiate ! 

15. Our Lord hath farther taught us to add 
another very necessary petition to our prayer : 
" and suffer us not to be led into temptation." An 
intimation this ! that our adversary hath no power 
to hurt us, but with God's permission ; which is 
therefore a reason why all our fear, observance, 
and devotion, should centre in God ; inasmuch as 
the evil one can do nothing against us in any of 
our temptations, but what he is expressly licensed 
to do from heaven. Thus the holy scrpture hath 
told us, that Nebuchadnezzar, King of Babylon, 



109 



came against Jerusalem, arid took it, and God 
gave it into his hand. And that the power of the 
tempter over us increases in proportion to our sins, 
we may fairly infer from that passage of holy writ, 
which puts the following question : " Who gave 
Jacob for a spoil, and Israel to the robbers ? did 
not the Lord, he against whom we have sinned ? 
for they would not walk in his ways, neither were 
they obedient unto his law : therefore he hath 
poured upon him the fury of his anger." And 
when Solomon had sinned, and forsaken the 
commandments and the ways of God, it is said, 
that God " stirred up an adversary against Solomon." 
Now there is a two-fold power given to the 
tempter ; either by way of punishment for our 
sins, or by way of test and proof, which when we 
abide, it contributes to the immortal honour of 
our virtue. Thus, we read, it fared with holy 
Job, whose case is thus represented to us by God 
himself, saying to Satan : " Behold, all that he 
hath is in thy power ; only upon himself put not 
forth thy hand." And our Lord just before his 
passion accosted Pilate to the same purpose : 
" Thou couldst have no power against me except it 
were given thee from above." Wherefore when we 
beg of God, that we may not enter into tempta- 
tion, we are very powerfully thence reminded of 
our frailty and infirmity ; and taught to assume 
nothing to ourselves with pride and sufficiency, 
not even the honour we have gained from confessing 



110 



the name of Christ, or from suffering for it ; since 
our Lord hath so strongly recommended to us a 
humble frame of mind, where he saith : " Watch 
ye and pray, lest ye enter into temptation ; the 
spirit truly is ready, but the flesh is weak." Thus 
when a submissive acknowledgment of our weak- 
ness is the harbinger of our prayer, and whatever 
we have or are, is ascribed to God as its author 
and fountaiiij there is the more likelihood of our 
gaining, from his benignity and bounty, what we 
desire of him, with a religious fear, and with a 
becoming reverence and honour for his holy name. 

16. We proceed, and subjoin, at the close of 
our prayer, a petition, which sums up the matter 
of all the foregoing ones in one brief sentence ; 
and thus we add in the conclusion ; " but deliver us 
from evil ;" herein comprising all those kinds of mis- 
chief which our grand adversary devises against us 
in this world : from which, if God deliver us, if our 
prayer and supplication derive upon us his powerful 
succour, we may hope for security and protection : 
Wherefore when we say, et but deliver us from evil," 
there is nothing farther which we need demand, 
after having implored the protection of God 
against our great enemy ; which when once we 
have obtained, we may thenceforwards hold our- 
selves secure from every thing which either the 
world or the devil can do against us. For what 
can he have to fear from the world, who hath God 
for his guardian and protector in it ? Or where, 



Ill 

my brethren, is the wonder, if the prayer which 
God himself hath taught us, do thus briefly com- 
prise in it, whatever can be the proper subject of 
our addresses to the throne of Grace ? 

17. Nor did our Lord by words only instruct 
us how to pray, but by deeds also ; himself often 
praying and making intercession, and teaching us 
by his example what would be fit for us to do. 
Thus it is written of him : " That he withdrew 
himself into the wilderness and prayed." And 
again : " That he went out into a mountain to pray, 
and continued all night in prayer to God." If he 
therefore was thus frequent and fervent in his prayer 
to God, who was without sin ; how much more 
ought sinners to be so ? If he watched whole 
nights, and spent them in religious offices, how 
much more ought we to do so ? Now our Lord 
when he prayed did it not for himself, for how 
could perfect innocence stand in need of using any 
supplications? but he prayed for us and for our 
sins, as he told Peter, saying unto him : " Behold 
Satan hath desired to have you, that he may sift 
you as wheat ; but I have prayed for thee, that 
thy faith fail not." And in another place we find 
him making intercession for all, and saying : " I 
pray not for these alone, but for them also which 
shall believe on me through their word ; that they 
all may be one, as thou Father art in me, and I 
in thee, that they also may be one in us." Great 
indeed was the benignity and concern of our Lord 



112 

and master for us and our salvation, who thought 
it not enough to redeem us only, but hath asked 
for us somewhat greater, if possible, than so great 
a blessing. Wherefore observe, I beseech you, 
the importance of his request for us, that as the 
Father and Son are one, so we also may abide in 
the same unity, and be one as they are. From 
whence by the way, we may fairly and properly 
infer the heinousness of their guilt, who make 
any breach in this peace, or any schism in this 
unity ; since our blessed Lord hath asked it of 
his Father, that we might abide in this peace and 
unity, as knowing its importance to our final 
happiness, and that no discord nor variance can 
ever enter into the kingdom of heaven. 

18. When we stand therefore praying, my 
beloved brethren, our hearts should be fixed 
entirely upon the work which employs us ; all 
carnal and worldly thoughts should be then with- 
drawn, and nothing should then be suffered to 
entertain our minds but the subject of our prayer. 
The avenues of our souls should be all locked up 
from God's and our enemy ; and God alone should 
have access to them ; the enemy is ever and anon 
attempting to steal upon us, and by various arts 
to hinder the ascent of our prayers to the throne 
of grace ; so that through his subtle stratagems it 
frequently comes to pass that we speak one thing 
and mean another ; whereas indeed our prayers 
should rather come from our hearts than our lips. 



113 



But now what a strange degree of indolence and 
sloth must possess us, when we suffer our minds 
to be thus alienated from their proper business, 
and led aside from it by thoughts and imaginations 
which no way belong to it ; as if there were any 
thing more truly deserving our accuracy and 
attention, than the correspondence we are at such 
time holding with God ? as if we could expect 
to be heard when we will not hear ? or as if it 
were reasonable to believe that God will be mind- 
ful of us when we forget ourselves, and the 
business we are engaged in ? This indeed is to 
be supinely negligent of our enemy ; to offend 
the majesty of God by our rude and careless 
approaches, when at the same time we profess to 
implore his mercy ; to be asleep in our hearts 
when yet our eyes are open ; whereas the reverse 
of this, viz. the wakefulness of the heart, when 
the eyes are slumbering, is really the proper test 
and character of a christian ; for the church is 
introduced in holy scripture, saying, " I sleep but 
my heart waketh and the apostle is very solici- 
tous and pressing in this matter, recommending it 
to us with all earnestness to " continue in prayer, 
and watch in the same with thanksgiving;" whereby 
he fairly intimates, that they are the most likely 
to obtain what they ask of God, whom he observes 
to be instant, and to watch unto prayer. 

19. But then our prayers should not ascend up 
empty nor unattended to the throne of grace, 

i 



114 



which is by no means the way to render them suc- 
cessful ; for since we are told that " every tree 
that bringeth not forth good fruit is hewn down, 
and cast into the fire," upon the same foundations 
of reason it may well be presumed that every word 
which we speak to God will be unacceptable, 
which is barren and fruitless, and unaccompanied 
with good works. The holy scripture therefore 
hath aptly here reminded us that " prayer is good 
with fasting and alms." 'Tis said of Cornelius 
that " he gave much alms to the people, and 
prayed to God always and to this man an angel 
appeared " about the ninth hour of the day," 
bearing honourable testimony of his good works, 
and t£ saying unto him, Cornelius, thy prayers and 
thine alms are come up for a memorial before 
God." Thus also the Lord asks — " Is not this the 
fast that I have chosen ? to loose the bands of 
wickedness, to undo the heavy burdens, and to 
let the oppressed go free, and that ye break every 
yoke ? Is it not to deal thy bread to the hungry, 
and that thou bring the poor that are cast out to 
thy house ; when thou seest the naked, that thou 
cover him ; and that thou hide not thyself from 
thine own flesh ? Then shall thy light break forth 
as the morning, and thine health shall spring forth 
speedily : and thy righteousness shall go before 
thee ; the glory of the Lord shall be thy reward. 
Then shalt thou call, and the Lord shall answer; 
thou shalt cry, and he shall say, " Here I am." In 



115 



which words we have an express promise from God, 
that he will be favourably present with those who 
loose the bands of wickedness, and deal out their 
alms to his household according to his command ; 
and that he will incline his ear to such as hearken 
to his voice. The holy apostle St. Paul hath called 
the succours which he received from the brethren 
in a time of distress, the sacrifices of God : " I 
am full, having received of Epaphroditus the 
things which were sent from you, an odour of a 
sweet smell, a sacrifice acceptable, well pleasing 
to God." Therefore when a man "hath pity upon 
the poor, he lendeth unto the Lord and he who 
sheweth mercy in the least instances, sheweth it 
unto God, and sacrifjceth unto God an odour of 
a sweet smell." 

20. Now as to the time of this act of worship to 
God, we find that Daniel, with the three famous 
youths, so renowned for the constancy of their 
faith, and the victory it obtained for them, even 
under their confinement observed more especially 
the third, the sixth, and the ninth hours. But 
now, my beloved, besides what were observed in 
former ages, the hours of prayer are increased 
upon us, as those mysteries and mercies have 
been multiplied, to which they may severally be sup- 
posed allusive : For the morning is sacred with us to 
the purposes of devotion, in a pious remembrance 
of our Lord's early resurrection. This indeed 
was long ago hinted to us by the holy psalmist, 

i 2 



116 



saying : " My King and my God, to thee will I 
pray ; my voice shalt thou hear in the morning, O 
Lord ; in the morning will I direct my prayer 
unto thee, and will look up." And by the prophet 
thus : " In their affliction they will seek me early, 
saying, come, and let us return unto the Lord." 
And at sun-set, when the day shuts in, we are 
again obliged to put up our prayers to God. For 
since Christ is the true sun and day-spring from 
on high, the close of the natural day very properly 
reminds us to ask of God that his heavenly light 
may descend upon us, to bless us with his never- 
dying light. Wherefore there can be no hour with 
Christians exempt from the duty of worshipping 
God ; but we, who profess to be in Christ and to 
abide in him, should continue ever in prayer to 
him. Thus the widow Anna continued watching 
in the temple, and praying without intermission, 
as we find it written of her in the gospel, which 
saith, that " she departed not from the temple, 
but served God with fastings and prayers night 
and day." Let the Gentiles therefore look to it, 
who want, as yet, this salutary light ; and let the 
Jews take heed who have forsaken it, and therefore 
abide in darkness. For ourselves, my beloved 
brethren, who are always in the light, and are 
well aware of the advantages we derive from our 
holy profession, in this point of prayer let us 
make no difference between the night and the day. 
We should ever imagine that we have the light 



117 



before us, and should not therefore suffer the 
darkness, out of which we have escaped, to prove 
any farther hindrance to us. Accordingly the 
night should not diminish our devotions ; slumber 
and sleep should not take off from them. Being 
born again through the grace of God, and renewed 
in the spirit of our minds, we should here 
anticipate some part of our future employment, 
and behave, as we shall do, in the kingdom of 
God, where no night shall interrupt our perpetual 
day ; we should here, in conformity to that blessed 
state, be wakeful in the night as we are in the day ; 
we should here beforehand inure ourselves to 
this delightful exercise, praying to God, and 
praising him, without weariness and without 
intermission. 



TRACT III. 



ON THE DUTY OF CHRISTIAN PATIENCE. 

The tract concerning the advantages of Patience, was 
written upon occasion of the disputes arising about 
the baptism administered by heretics and schismatics, 
whether valid or not. Our author insists in it only 
on general topics, and meddles not with the controversy 
itself, whilst he was trying to cool the heats which on 
both sides of the question grew too exorbitant ; as 
knowing well that, could he bring them once to a truly 
christian temper, and to mutual forbearance, the 
question itself would less exasperate. 

1. As patience, my brethren, is our present 
subject, and its several advantages are now to be 
laid before you, I easily foresee you will have 
immediate occasion for the exercise of it in hearing 
with patience what I have to say about it ; so that 
this is a virtue which you can never learn without 
practising upon it, in each step of the instruction 
which shall be given you concerning it. And 
indeed every precept of religion is taught with 
most success and efficacy where there is most 
patience in hearing what is delivered of it. 
Wherefore amidst the several methods of divine 
grace whereby the men of our persuasion are 
trained up to the rewards prepared for them, I do 
not see any one more useful, or more becoming 



119 

our character, who profess all holy obedience to 
the commands of Christ, than this of a steady 
adherence to the duty we are now considering. 
The philosophers among the Gentiles make great 
professions of their regard to this virtue ; but 
then their patience, like the rest of their wisdom, 
is, all of it, pretence and shew ; hath nothing of 
truth or of substance in it. For whence, I beseech 
you, should they learn wisdom or patience, who 
are utterly unacquainted with the wisdom and 
patience of God ? As to those who are such 
mighty pretenders to the wisdom of this world, 
God hath declared himself in the following manner: 
" The wisdom of their wise men shall perish, and 
the understanding of their prudent men shall be 
hid." Thus likewise the blessed apostle Paul, 
who was full of the Holy Ghost, and peculiarly 
commissioned to call in the Gentiles to the church 
of Christ, hath given us much the same represen- 
tation of their wisdom, and warned us of it in 
these words : " Beware lest any man spoil you 
through philosophy and vain deceit, after the 
tradition of men, after the rudiments of the world, 
and not after Christ. For in him dwelleth all tlie 
fulness of the Godhead."* And in another place : 
" Let no man deceive himself. If any man among 
you seemeth to be wise in this world, let him 



* 'Tis observable, that neither Irenseus nor our author add the word 
bodily, in this quotation. 



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become a fool, that he may be wise. For the 
wisdom of this world is foolishness with God. 
For it is written, he taketh the wise in their own 
craftiness." And again : " The Lord knoweth 
the thoughts of man, that they are vanity." 
Wherefore as these men plainly have no true 
wisdom, 'tis utterly impossible that they should, 
be endowed with true patience. For patience 
supposes, in the person possessed of it, meekness 
and humility ; whereas the philosophers, w T e may 
observe, have neither of these two qualities ; 
but instead of them are conceited and purled 
up, exceedingly pleased with themselves, and 
please not God at all, because they please them- 
selves too well ; so that I say there can be no 
true patience where there is so much insolence 
and presumption, so much forwardness and vain 
boasting. 

2. For our parts, my beloved brethren, whose 
business it is to be in reality what these philosophers 
are in appearance only ; not in word, but in deed 
and in truth ; who better know how to practise 
virtue than to boast of it ; who live up to that pitch 
of sanctity which they only talk of ; let us, I say, 
who are the servants and worshippers of God, give 
a proof of that obedience which we have learned 
from his sacred instructions, by the steady practice 
of this incomparable virtue ; which indeed is 
common to us with God himself, from whom it 
takes its rise ; and derives its main honour and 



121 



dignity from that illustrious fountain. What is 
therefore in such high estimation with God, should 
have a proportionable measure of regard from man ; 
and it should be a sufficient commendation of it to 
the one, that the other approves and loves it. If 
God be acknowledged as our Lord and Father, his 
forbearance and longsuffering should be ours also; 
for servants should be obedient to their Lord, and 
children should not degenerate from their father's 
virtues. Now we may hence take an estimate of 
God's long-suffering, that he bears so patiently 
with those continual and repeated affronts which 
are offered to his divine majesty by the superstitions 
of a gentile worship, their temples, their altars, 
and impious sacrifices ; that, by his appointment, 
the day and the sun distribute their heat and their 
light equally and impartially among the evil and 
the good ; and when he sendeth his rain to water 
and refresh the earth, all alike partake of the 
benefit without exception, and the just and the 
unjust are equal sharers in it. Thus we see that 
his merciful forbearance makes no distinction 
between the evil and the good ; but the seasons 
are subservient in common to all their uses ; and 
the winds, the waters, the harvest, the vintage, the 
fruits of the earth, the groves and meadows, unfold 
their respective treasures in equal proportions to 
them all. And though God is every day provoked 
with repeated offences, he restrains his anger, and 
patiently waits for the appointed day of retribution. 



122 



And though vengeance is always in his power, yet 
his long-suffering chooses to protract its awards ; 
to see whether the delay of it may not produce 
some happy alteration ; whether men, how long 
and deeply soever they may have been engaged in 
guilt, may not at last, though late, be turned 
to God, who hath thus encouraged them in the 
following words : " Have I any pleasure at all 
that the wicked should die ? saith the Lord God : 
and not that he should return from his ways and 
live ?" And again, by another of his prophets, 
saying, " Turn unto the Lord your God, for he 
is gracious and merciful, slow to anger, and of 
great kindness, and repenteth him of the evil." 
The holy apostle hath likewise borne his testimony 
to this attribute of God, and thence endeavoured 
to persuade the sinner to repent and turn to him, 
saying, " Despisest thou the riches of his goodness, 
and forbearance, and long-suffering, not knowing 
that the goodness of God leadeth thee to repent- 
ance ? But after thy hardness and impenitent 
heart treasurest up unto thyself wrath against the 
day of wrath and revelation of the righteous 
judgment of God, who will render to every man 
according to his deeds." He calls the judgment 
of God righteous, because 'tis late, because 'tis a 
great while postponed and delayed ; that so by 
means of God's long-suffering, man may have 
time and opportunity to seek for his salvation. 
Then punishment lights very properly upon the 



123 

ungodly and the sinner, when repentance is useless 
and unavailable. 

3. Now for a farther proof to us that patience is 
a property of God, and that whosoever is meek, 
and kind, and patient, is like thereby unto God 
his father ; we should consider those words of our 
Saviour when he was giving his disciples a scheme 
of more perfect duty, which should be sure to con- 
duct them safe to heaven : " Ye have heard that it 
hath been said, thou shalt love thy neighbour and 
hate thine enemy. But I say unto you, love your 
enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to 
them that hate you, and pray for them which 
despitefully use you and persecute you; that ye 
may be the children of your Father which is in 
heaven ; for he maketh his sun to rise on the evil 
and on the good, and sendeth his rain on the just 
and on the unjust. For if ye love them which 
love you, what reward have ye ? do not even the 
publicans the same ? And if ye salute your 
brethren only, what do ye more than others ? do 
not even the publicans so ? Be ye therefore 
perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is 
perfect." This was the way whereby our Saviour 
judged that the children of God would become 
perfect ; that after their new, their second birth, 
the measure of their stature would be hence com- 
pleted ; viz. if the long-suffering of God did indeed 
abide in them ; if that heavenly image which Adam 
forfeited were clearly revived and exemplified in 



124 



their actions. Now how great, my brethren, must 
be the honour and the happiness of resembling 
God; of attaining to virtues, whose praises mix 
with those of our heavenly Father ? 

4. Nor did Jesus Christ our God and Lord 
teach us how to behave in this particular by word 
only ; but his practice accompanied his instructions, 
and he led us by his example as well as by precept. 
And as the avowed design of his coming amongst 
us was to do the will of his Father ; amidst the 
many wonderful and heavenly virtues, which 
proclaimed the Spirit and power whereby he acted, 
none was more conspicuous nor remarkable than 
that uninterrupted tenor of meekness and for- 
bearance, which spread itself throughout his whole 
behaviour, and drew his Father's image to the life. 
Indeed, every circumstance relating to him bore 
this impression. If we begin with his first 
appearance in our flesh : It was no small proof of 
his meekness and condescension, to leave his 
glorious abode in heaven, to visit our poor earth ; 
for the Son of God to be clothed with our flesh ; 
and for him, who did no sin, to bear the sins of 
others. He was content to divest himself for a 
while of his immortality, and to become like one 
of us mortals ; that the punishment of an innocent 
and righteous person might avail for the pardon of 
the unrighteous and guilty. The master submitted 
himself to be baptized by his servant \ and he, 
who was to confer upon us the remission of our 



125 



sins, himself vouchsafed to be washed in the laver 
of regeneration. He fasted forty days, through 
whose gracious supplies the hunger and thirst of 
others are answered even unto fulness ; he dis- 
dained not to feel the pinches of want and famine, 
that such as should be destitute of the word of 
God's grace, might be filled with the bread of 
heaven. He entered the lists with the tempter ; 
and when he had conquered his enemy, and had 
him at mercy, he pushed his advantage no farther, 
than only to silence him with a mild rebuke. He 
governed his disciples, not as a master doth his 
servants, with a lord-like authority ; but treated 
them rather as brethren, and gained them to his 
will with the charms of a persuasive love. He 
even condescended so low as to wash his disciples' 
feet *, by all these instances instructing us, that if 
a master so behaved to his servants, fellow-servants 
should not be wanting in any kind or condescensive 
offices towards each other. Nor need we wonder 
at our Lord for the lowly services he paid to those, 
who made him some returns by their obedience ; 
since he even bore to the last with Judas, vouch- 
safed to eat with him, knew all along that he would 
betray him ; yet never exposed him by any open 
discovery, and did not finally disdain the accep- 
tance of that traitor's kiss. How signal also was 
his patience in his indulgent treatment of the 
obstinate and unthankful ; in his mild and gracious 
answers to gainsayers ; in his concessions and con- 



126 



descensions to the proud and haughty ; in his 
humble submission to his cruel persecutors ; and 
finally, in his unwearied endeavours, even till the 
moment of his suffering and crucifixion, to gather 
those together, within the pale of his church, who 
had all along been the murderers of his prophets, 
and rebels against the majesty of God and his Christ. 
That excellent and righteous person was reckoned 
among the vilest and worst of malefactors ; false 
witness was in his case suffered to oppress the 
truth ; the judge of this world was arraigned 
and judged at a tribunal of this world, and the 
Word of God was led as a lamb to the slaughter. 
And though at the crucifixion of their Lord and 
Sovereign the stars of heaven withdrew their light, 
the elements were disordered, the earth trembled 
and shook, and a thick darkness overspread the 
face of it ; the sun withholding his rays, and, as it 
were, refusing to behold the monstrous villany of 
the Jews ; yet was not he moved all this while to 
utter a complaining word, nor provoked to display 
the lustre of his majesty, by all the agonies of 
his bitter passion ; but to the conclusion of that 
astonishing scene he persevered in the exercise of 
his unparalleled patience, that so patience in him 
might have its perfect work. Nay, after all, he 
took care even of his murderers, provided they 
would turn to him : his patience was so admirable, 
and his desire to save so invincible, that he would 
not shut the doors of his church even against his 



127 



most bitter enemies. He was so far from resenting 
the ill treatment he met with from those perverse 
and obstinate blasphemers, that if they would have 
repented of their sin, and humbly acknowledged 
it, he not only propounded to have pardoned, but 
even to have opened for them the kingdom of 
heaven. Now what could be a greater evidence 
than this of his long-suffering and forgiving temper, 
to give life to them by his blood, who were so 
cruel and merciless as to spill it 1 — Such, and so 
great, was our Lord's forbearance ! We therefore, 
my brethren, if we are truly in Christ, if we have 
put on the Lord Jesus, and consider him as the 
way of salvation to us, should tread in his saving 
steps, and follow his blessed example, according 
to the blessed instruction given us by the apostle 
St. John, saying, " He that saith he abideth in 
him ought himself also so to walk, even as he 
walked." St. Peter likewise, upon whom Christ 
hath vouchsafed to build his church, hath recom- 
mended to us Christ's example in his epistle, 
saying, " Christ also suffered for us, leaving us 
an example, that ye should follow his steps : who 
did no sin, neither was guile found in his mouth : 
who, when he was reviled, reviled not again ; when 
he suffered, he threatened not; but committed 
himself to him that judgeth righteously." 

5. The patriarchs and prophets, all indeed who 
stand recorded as righteous persons, and were 
forerunners of Christ, and resembled to any degree 



128 



the character he was to bear, were solicitous for 
nothing more than whilst they approved their 
other virtues, that this of patience might have its 
due share of commendation. Thus Abel, whose 
name was first entered upon the list of martyrs, 
and who first was honoured with the character of 
a righteous man ; resisted not the attempt of his 
impious brother against him, but carried his 
character with him to his grave, and died as he 
had lived, an humble and patient man. Thus 
Abraham, believing in God, and laying the 
foundation of a saving faith, when he was tempted 
in that famous instance of his son, obeyed with 
all alacrity, and flinched not from the hardship 
which that trial had laid him under. Isaac also, 
who therein was a type of our blessed Saviour's 
sacrifice, was not wanting in any fit manifestations 
of his own patience and submission, when his 
father would have offered him up to God. Jacob 
likewise, when sent out to seek his fortune for 
fear of his brother Esau, left his own country 
contentedly, and afterwards exemplified a most 
signal submission when he gained his brother, 
though before his enemy and persecutor, to 
terms of reconciliation and friendship. Joseph 
when sold by his brethren, and sent far away from 
his father's house, was not only so good as to par- 
don their offence against him ; but when they 
came to buy corn of him, he gave it them freely, 
and took no money for it. Moses was frequently 



129 



despised, and now and then well-nigh stoned by 
a faithless ungrateful people ; and yet was he so 
gentle as to intreat the Lord for them. How 
exemplary, how truly christian was holy David's 
patience, from whose loins our Saviour sprang, 
according to the flesh, who had his mortal enemy 
Saul more than once at mercy ; and though above 
all things Saul desired to take away the good man's 
life, yet when he was in David's power, and David 
could have done what he had pleased against him, 
instead of returning evil for evil, he chose rather 
to save his life, and afterwards avenged his death ? 
In fine ; amidst so many instances of prophets 
slain, and of martyrs honoured with illustrious 
deaths, patience was ever the distinguishing 
virtue which entitled them to their several crowns, 
and led them to their glorious kingdom. 

6. For a farther evidence of the usefulness and 
excellence of this incomparable virtue, let us con- 
sider, my brethren, the sentence which God passed 
upon our first parent Adam, who, in the infancy 
of the world, transgressed the commandment of 
God ; and we shall thence be convinced how steady 
we should be to the practice of this duty which 
becomes necessary to us from the condition we are 
born to of labour and trouble. " Because (saith 
God) thou hast hearkened unto the voice of thy 
wife, and hast eaten of the tree, of which I com- 
manded thee, saying, Thou shalt not- eat of it : 
cursed is the ground for thy sake ; in sorrow shalt 

K 



ISO 



thou eat of it all the days of thy life. Thorns also 
and thistles shall it bring forth to thee ; and thou 
shalt eat the herb of the field. In the sweat of 
thy face shalt thou eat bread, till thou return unto 
the ground ; for out of it wast thou taken : for 
dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return." 
The effect of this sentence reaches all mankind, 
so long as they continue upon the face of that 
earth. Labour and trouble are the necessary 
terms of our abode in this world, till death releases 
us ; and we must eat our bread here continually 
in the sweat of our brow. A sample of the sorrow 
we are to have afterwards in life, is given us at our 
birth, which is always ushered in with tears ; the 
tender inexperienced infant, though it knows 
nothing else, knows how to enter upon the begin- 
ning of life with lamentation and sorrow \ instinct 
directs it to bewail its future troubles ; the soul, 
by a natural forecast, presages to itself immedi- 
ately those storms which it is hereafter to meet 
with in this vale of misery. 

7. This labour would be utterly insupportable, if 
it were not lightened by patience, w 7 hich indeed is 
our only remedy against it, or at least our only con- 
solation under it. This, though of great advantage 
and usefulness to all, yet is more especially so to us, 
who are every day exercised with the assaults of 
our ghostly enemy, are obliged to stand always to 
our arms, and are kept in perpetual alarms by his 
various stratagems ; who, besides the common 



131 



incidents and temptations of life, are often obliged 
to encounter the storms of persecution, to bear 
the forfeiture of our estates, and the imprisonment 
of our persons ; to hazard and expose our lives, to 
be manacled and fettered, and to undergo with 
firmness of faith and patience, whatsoever our 
adversaries can devise or execute against us, by 
fire and sword, and the rage of those beasts, to 
which they so often cast us. Our Lord hath 
accordingly forewarned us of this usage, saying, 
" These things I have spoken unto you, that in 
me ye might have peace. In the world ye shall 
have tribulation : but be of good cheer ; I have 
overcome the world." If we therefore, who have 
renounced the world and the devil, are thence to 
expect the more violent assaults from both ; 
certainly we have the more reason thence to fore- 
arm ourselves with the higher degrees of patience, 
which is the best provision we can make against 
them. Excellent to this purpose is our Saviour's 
counsel to us, saying, "He that endureth to the 
end, shall be saved." And again, " If ye con- 
tinue in my word, then are ye my disciples indeed ; 
and ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall 
make you free." 

8. Our perseverance, my beloved brethren, and 
our patience, are absolutely necessary to perfect 
that state of liberty and truth, whereupon we are 
entered ; our religion at present is a state of faith 
and hope, which can never attain their respective 

k 2 



182 



ends without the help of patience. The glory we 
aim at is not present, but future ; as the apostle 
hath well reminded us, saying, i( We are saved by 
hope \ but hope that is seen is not hope ; for what 
a man seeth, why doth he yet hope for ? But if 
we hope for what we see not, then do we with 
patience wait for it." Wherefore 'tis plainly 
necessary that we should wait with patience, in 
order to perfect what we have begun ; and that we 
may obtain through the mercies of God, what we 
believe and hope for, we are admonished not to 
be weary of well doing, not to give up in the 
midst of our glorious struggle, through any pres- 
sures of temptation, or any softness in yielding to 
the force of them ; lest by leaving our work 
unfinished, we should lose the fruits of our pre- 
ceding labour. We are also elsewhere directed, 
to " hold that fast which we have, that no man 
take our crown." In which words we are exhorted 
to continue stedfast in our duty with constancy 
and courage ; that so pressing forwards to that 
glorious crown, and being almost in sight of it, we 
may not finally be disappointed ; but that our 
perseverance, in the conclusion, may assure it 
to us. 

9. Now patience, my brethren, not only consigns 
to us very many and great advantages, but rescues 
us also from many fatal mischiefs. It not only 
favours the suggestions of the Holy Spirit, and 
teaches us a steady adherence to the things of 



133 



God ; but enables us likewise to struggle success- 
fully with the desires of the flesh, and to mortify the 
deeds of the body, which are so apt to weigh down 
and oppress the mind ; and to entrench ourselves 
securely within the fortress of those virtues which 
it teaches us. To instance in a few of many 
particulars which might be named, and from thence 
to form a judgment of the rest — Adultery, forgery, 
and murder, are crimes, we know, of the deepest 
dye : but let patience have the possession and 
government of the soul, and then the body, which 
hath once been consecrated to God, and become 
his temple, will never be polluted with the sin of 
adultery ; forgery will never harbour in that breast 
which hath been solemnly dedicated to righteous- 
ness and true holiness ; nor will the hand be defiled 
with blood, which hath once held in it the sacred 
body of Christ. Charity is the grand cement of 
our christian corporation ; the support of that 
peace and unity which, according to the apostle's 
estimate, is greater and more considerable than 
either our faith or hope ; which hath the precedency 
of all good works, nay even of martyrdom itself, 
as being indeed to abide with us for ever in the 
kingdom of heaven. But take away patience from 
it, and it will never singly maintain its ground ; 
remove from it the ability to bear and to endure, 
and you sap its very foundation ; so that it will 
have nothing left for its support. Wherefore the 
apostle, when he was speaking of charity, very 



134 



properly and fitly joined patience and long-suffering 
with it. " Charity suffereth long, and is kind | 
charity envieth not ; charity vaunteth not itself, 
is not puffed up, doth not behave itself unseemly, 
seeketh not her own, is not easily provoked, 
thinketh no evil ; beareth all things, believeth all 
things, hopeth all things, endureth all things." 
He intimates that charity is enabled to persevere 
in the several duties required from her, by knowing 
how to endure all things. And again, where 
he uses the following words : " Forbearing one 
another in love ; endeavouring to keep the unity 
of the spirit in the bond of peace 5" he plainly 
enough declares his opinion, that peace and unity 
can never be preserved among brethren unless 
they will be persuaded to forbear one another in 
love, and by such mutual forbearance to preserve 
the bonds of peace inviolate. 

10. Then, again, as to what is required of us, not 
to swear, not to speak evil, to bear the loss of what is 
our own, without insisting upon an exact reparation ; 
when we are smitten on one cheek to offer the 
other ; to forgive our offending brother, not only 
unto seventy times seven, but even as oft as he 
shall offend, without any limitation ; to love our 
enemies, and to pray for them who shall despite- 
fully use us and persecute us : I say as to all these 
several instances of duty, how can we imagine it 
will be ever possible for us to perform them, except 
we fortify our minds by inuring them to an habitual 



135 



firmness, and patience ? We may observe these 
virtues shining with great advantage in the beha- 
viour of Steven ; who, when the Jews were stoning 
him to death, had no thought of revenge, but 
begged of God the forgiveness of his murderers, 
saying : " Lord, lay not this sin to their charge." 
The whole procedure was suitable to the character 
of the first martyr of the christian church ; who, 
being the forerunner of all who were to follow 
him in his glorious sufferings, was not only to 
publish the passion of Christ, but to imitate his 
patient submission to it. Were I to proceed in 
examples, wrath, contention, and discord, are 
vices which no christian should harbour. Now if 
patience be suffered to abide in him, these will 
find no place with him ; or if they should attempt 
to gain admission, they would soon be dispossessed, 
and so his heart would become a peaceable habita- 
tion, where the God of peace might delight to 
dwell. The apostle hath w T ell admonished us, 
saying: "Grieve not the holy Spirit of God, 
whereby ye are sealed unto the day of redemption. 
Let all bitterness, and wrath, and anger, and 
clamour, and evil-speaking, be put away from you, 
with all malice." For surely if the christian hath 
escaped from the pollutions of the world, and hath 
put into the haven of Christ, where all is serene 
and calm, and safe from boisterous tempests, he 
should not endure the approaches of rage and 
contention to his breast, who is not allowed to hate 



186 



any man, nor to recompense evil for evil.. Nor is 
patience less necessary for enabling us to undergo 
the various inconveniences and troubles to which 
the make of our bodies exposeth us, and with 
which we are perpetually tormented. For since 
in the first instance of sin which was ever com- 
mitted, we lost the original vigour of our bodies, 
when we forfeited our title to immortality, and 
weakness and infirmities came upon us when we were 
obnoxious to death; and since we cannot recover 
our primitive strength of constitution till we recover 
our immortality \ there arises hence a necessity of 
struggling always with these several infirmities, 
which would be absolutely insupportable to us 
without the aids of patience. Various are the 
trials and afflictions wherewith we are exercised by 
the hand of providence, in the ruin of our fortune, 
in the rage of fevers, and in the loss of our nearest 
and dearest friends. Nor is there any thing which 
more distinguishes the righteous from the wicked, 
in these calamities, than this signal circumstance 
of their respective deportment under them ; for 
whilst the wicked is impatient and blaspheming 
under a sense of his misfortunes, the righteous 
man is approved, and his patience abides the test. 

11. To this test holy Job was brought, and, in 
his example, patience had her perfect work and 
her highest commendations. With what variety 
of torments did the tempter press him ? With 
what innumerable darts did he attack him ? He 



137 



broke his fortunes ; he deprived him of a numerous 
and hopeful issue : He who a little while was 
rich in his possessions, and richer yet in his chil- 
dren, lost on a sudden the one and the other ; 
and, to add to his misery, he was full of sores. 
And, that no circumstance of temptation might 
be wanting to complete his trial, the devil made 
his wife an instrument of assaulting him ; herein 
resorting to his old artifice, and fancying that, 
because his first success was procured by this 
stratagem, he might always expect the like advan- 
tage, and pervert that sex into an engine of pro- 
moting his fraudulent and mischievous purposes ; 
yet the good man had no disadvantageous impres- 
sions made upon him by this or any other struggle 
he was put to j but amidst all his sufferings and 
pressures, his patience enabled him still to bless 
God, and to celebrate his maker's praise. 

12. Farther yet, my brethren, let us compare 
the advantages of patience with the mischiefs of 
its opposite ; and thence let us form our estimate : 
For as patience is a christian virtue, so impatience 
is a diabolical vice ; he therefore in whom Christ 
dwelleth, always approves himself meek and 
patient in disposition and behaviour ; as he is the 
very reverse of this character, who hath his mind 
possessed by the malice of the tempter. Let us 
proceed to trace this evil to its rise, and to observe 
it in its progress. The devil was first impatient 
at man, being made after the image of God ; 



138 



thence he fell himself, and drew in others to fall 
with him. Adam could not bear with the restraint 
under which the commandment of God had laid 
him ; so his impatience proved fatal to him, and 
he forfeited that guardian grace, which he might 
have preserved, would he have stood firm to his 
duty : Cain could not endure the acceptance 
which his brother's sacrifice and oblation found at 
the hands of God \ and so he embrued his hands 
in his brother's blood. The reason of Esau's 
forfeiture and loss of birth-right was founded in 
his inability to bear with the present want of a 
little pottage. And was not the original crime of 
the Jews, who have since been so infamous for 
their ingratitude and disobedience ; was it not, I 
say, at first this very species of sin ? They grew 
restless and uneasy at the delay of Moses, who 
staid longer than they expected in the mount 
communing with God ; and so presumed to demand 
other gods to lead and to march before them, even 
the head of a calf, and a figure made with men's 
hands ; and they proceeded ever after agreeably 
to that beginning ; never enduring to be led by 
the counsel of God, but advancing from the mur- 
der of his servants and prophets, to shed at last 
the blood of his Son our Lord, and to nail him 
upon a cross. 

13. Impatience likewise makes heretics in the 
church, and draws in men to a rebellion against 
Christ, like that of the Jews ; it causes them to 



139 



break the bonds of peace and love, and to engage 
in the fiercest contests with each other ; and, not 
to enter into the detail of numberless particulars, 
whatsoever patience would build up, or whatsoever 
it would contribute by its happy effects to the 
ornament and honour of our nature, that impa- 
tience pulls down, and contributes just as much 
to our reproach and scandal. Wherefore, my 
beloved brethren, let us put the advantages of 
patience into one scale, and the mischiefs of im- 
patience into another, and let us weigh them 
together with a just and equal balance ; and then 
certainly we shall abide by patience, through 
which we abide in Christ, and hope to come unto 
God with him : This is a large and extensive 
virtue, is confined to no scanty measures, nor is 
bounded by any narrow limitations. 

14. Patience, I say, is a very comprehensive 
virtue, and though it hath only one name, and 
all its streams proceed from one common fountain, 
yet doth that fountain spread itself into many 
rivulets, which form distinct canals, each of them 
meriting distinct commendations. For, to leave 
our metaphor for the strict truth of things, there 
can no single instance of virtue be carried to its 
just perfection, unless there be a firmness in the 
mind to raise it to its proper pitch of excellence. 
'Tis patience which brings us into favour with 
God, and keeps us in it ; 'tis that which softens 
our temper, bridles our tongue, prescribes to each 



140 



motion of our minds, regulates all discipline, abates 
the fury of lust, restrains the exorbitance of pride, 
extinguishes the flames of discord, is a check upon 
the power of the rich, and a support to the needy 
in their distress and indigence : in prosperity, it 
makes men humble ; in adversity, it enables them 
to endure hardness ; under affronts and injuries, 
it persuades to gentleness and forbearance ; teaches 
men to pardon those who have offended them ; and 
if they themselves have offended, to ask forgiveness 
with great and repeated importunity : By it we 
are prepared to endure temptation, and to conquer 
it ; to undergo the severities of persecution, and 
finally to finish our course in a blessed martyrdom. 
In short, 'tis that which guards the foundations 
of our faith, which enlarges and increases our 
christian hope to the highest and noblest advances, 
which regulates our actions, orders our steps in 
the way of Christ, and directs us to follow his 
example in suffering : and thence we persevere in 
being the children of God, as copying after the 
pattern of his forbearance and long-suffering. 

15. But, my brethren, since I am very sensible 
how many there are amongst us, who, through a 
raging sense of the injuries they have received, and 
the displeasure thence arising against the persons 
offering them, are in haste for vengeance, and 
cannot bear the delay of it till the great day of 
retribution ; these I would with all fit persuasives 
exhort to forbear till then, and to try what ad van- 



141 



tages they may derive in the interim from this 
excellent virtue : and therefore not to let any keen 
resentment of injurious treatment too far transport 
them, nor make them too speedy in their demands 
or expectations of vengeance > but rather to bear, 
as well as they can, the ill usage they are likely to 
meet with from the common troubles and ren- 
counters of life, as well as from malicious persecu- 
tions ; remembering that it is written : " Wait ye 
upon me, saith the Lord, until the day that I rise 
up to the prey; for my determination is to gather 
the nations, that I may assemble the kingdoms, to 
pour upon them mine indignation, even all my 
fierce anger." Where you may observe, my 
brethren, that our Lord commands us to wait with 
patience for the day of vengeance. And in the 
book of Revelations he hath given out a farther 
order, saying : " Seal not the sayings of the 
prophecy of this book ; for the time is at hand. 
He that is unjust, let him be unjust still ; and he 
which is filthy, let him be filthy still ; and he that 
is righteous, let him be righteous still ; and he that 
is holy, let him be holy still. Behold, I come 
quickly, and my reward is with me, to give to 
every man according as his work shall be." Thus 
the martyrs who cried aloud for vengeance, and 
whose resentment made them somewhat too much 
in haste for it, were bid to wait for a little season, 
till the times should be fulfilled, and the number 
of those completed who should be killed as they 



142 



had been. Thus it is written : " When he had 
opened the fifth seal, I saw under the altar the 
souls of them that were slain for the word of God, 
and for the testimony which they held : and they 
cried with a loud voice, saying, how long, O Lord, 
holy and true, dost thou not judge and avenge our 
blood on them that dwell on the earth ? And 
white robes were given unto every one of them ; 
and it was said unto them, that they should rest 
yet for a little season, until their fellow-servants 
also and their brethren that should be killed as 
they were, should be fulfilled. " When, in par- 
ticular, vengeance shall be executed upon the 
shedders of innocent blood, the Spirit of God hath 
declared by the mouth of his prophet Malachi, 
saying : " Behold, the day cometh that shall burn 
as an oven ; and all the proud, yea and all that 
do wickedly, shall be stubble ; and the day that 
cometh shall burn them up, saith the Lord." We 
read likewise to much the same purpose in the 
book of Psalms, where the coming of God in all 
the pomp of his majesty and solemn judgment 
is awfully set forth : " Our God shall come, 
and shall not keep silence ; a fire shall devour 
before him, and it shall be very tempestuous round 
about him. He shall call to the heavens from 
above, and to the earth, that he may judge his 
people. Gather my saints together unto me ; 
those that have made a covenant with me by 
sacrifice. And the heavens shall declare his 



148 



righteousness ; for God is judge himself." The 
prophet Isaiah hath likewise foretold the same 
thing, saying : " Behold, the Lord will come with 
fire, and with his chariots like a whirlwind, to 
render his anger with fury, and his rebuke with 
flames of fire. For by fire and by his sword will 
the Lord plead with all flesh." And again : 
" The Lord shall go forth as a mighty man, he 
shall stir up jealousy like a man of war; he shall 
cry, yea, roar ; he shall prevail against his enemies. 
I have long time holden my peace ; I have been 
still, and refrained myself ; now will I cry like a 
travailing woman ; I will destroy and devour at 
once." Who now is he w 7 ho saith that he had 
long held his peace, but w r ould not always do so ? 
" He was oppressed, and he was afflicted, yet he 
opened not his mouth ; he is brought as a lamb to 
the slaughter, and as a sheep before her shearers 
is dumb, so he openeth not his mouth. He shall 
not cry, nor lift up, nor cause his voice to be heard 
in the street. The Lord God opened mine ear, 
and I was not rebellious, neither turned away back. 
I gave my back to the smiters, and to them that 
plucked off the hair ; I hid not my face from shame 
and spitting." Even he, who, when he was 
accused by the chief priests and elders, answered 
nothing ; and, to the great admiration of Pilate, 
persisted resolvedly in his patience and silence. 
This is the person whom the prophet alludes to, 
who, though he held his peace in suffering, will no 



144 

longer hold it when he cometh to take vengeance. 
This is our God, not the God of all, but of chris- 
tians only, who believe and trust in his name. 
This is he who shall not keep silence when he shall 
appear again visibly to the world at his second 
coming ; for as at his first coming his majesty was 
veiled by his humility, so at his second, he shall 
come with power and great glory. 

16. Wherefore, my beloved brethren, let us wait 
contentedly for him, as our judge and our avenger, 
who will be sure of doing justice to himself and 
to the members of his church, as well as to all 
righteous persons who have lived since the world 
began. And let every man, by the way, consider, 
who is so much in haste to have vengeance executed 
upon his enemies, that he who is to execute it hath 
not yet taken it of his own enemies. God the 
Father hath appointed that adoration should be 
paid to his Son; and the apostle St. Paul, in 
conformity to that appointment, hath expressly 
told us : " Wherefore God also hath highly exalted 
him, and given him a name which is above every 
name ; that at the name of Jesus every knee 
should bow, of things in heaven, and things in 
earth, and things under the earth." And in the 
book of Revelations we may observe the angel 
restraining St. John, who would have worshipped 
him, from doing it, saving : " See thou do it not, 
for I am thy fellow-servant, and of thy brethren 
the prophets, and of them which keep the sayings 



145 



of this book ; worship God." How uncommon a 
person must this Jesus be, and with what extra- 
ordinary patience endowed; who, though he be 
worshipped in heaven, is not yet avenged upon 
earth ? Let his patience therefore be our pattern, 
in all our sufferings and persecutions ; and let us 
contentedly adjourn all our views and expectations 
of vengeance to his second coming. Let us not, 
who are his servants, be so unbecoming in our wishes 
or prospects, as to think of being vindicated till 
he hath been so ; rather let us labour, with our 
best and most diligent endeavours, to be found 
constant and persevering in our obedience to all 
his commandments ; that so when the day of wrath 
and retribution shall approach us, we may not be 
consigned to a state of punishment with the wicked 
and ungodly, but, with righteous men, who fear 
God, may enter upon the possession of our joy 
and crown. 



L 



TRACT IV. 



ON EMULATION AND ENVY. 

The following tract, concerning Emulation and Envy ; was 
written upon much the same occasion with the preceding 
one, and strikes indeed at the root of very many 
differences, which may happen at any time to arise 
among Christians of the same communion. 

1. My brethren, there are many who judge it 
a slight offence against the laws of virtue, to be 
picqued at what they observe to be good in any 
one, and to envy their betters. Thus whilst they 
think the crime to be small and trivial, they are 
not afraid of it ; from being not afraid of it. they 
grow to despise it ; when they despise it, they are 
in no manner careful to avoid it ; and so the mis- 
chief creeps upon them unobserved. By not 
appearing to them in its proper shape and colour, 
their caution is not armed against it ; but they 
suck in the poison without the least apprehension 
of its fatal consequences. Our Lord hath there- 
fore well and pertinently forewarned us to be wise 
and provident, and to watch with all holy jealousy 
and solicitude ; lest our adversary, who is ever 
himself upon the watch, should steal into our 
hearts, and there kindle a mighty flame out of a 
spark of fire ; or by soothing us, whilst off our 



147 



guard, with a soft and gentle gale, should lull us 
asleep, and then raise a storm and hurricane 
about us, which should make shipwreck of our 
faith, and bring our life and salvation into peril. 
Wherefore* my beloved brethren, it is incumbent 
upon us, to be always upon our guard against him, 
always armed against those many and various darts 
which he is perpetually aiming at us wherever he 
sees his advantage, or finds it likely to wound and 
hurt us. We must hold ourselves in constant 
readiness to make head against him according to 
the advice we have received from the apostle St. 
Peter, who in his epistle hath thus admonished 
and instructed us : " Be sober, be vigilant, because 
your adversary the devil, as a roaring lion, walketh 
about seeking whom he may devour." He walketh, 
indeed, round about each of us, and, like an enemy 
besieging us, pries into our strength, observes our 
weak side, what avenues are most faintly guarded, 
and where he may form his attack with the greatest 
appearance of success and victory. He hath 
somewhat to propound to every sense and member ; 
he hath tempting beauties to engage our eyes, and 
easily taints the purity of our hearts by pleasures 
thence offering themselves without any obstacle 
or difficulty. He hath all the entertainments of 
music to charm our ears, and therewith to unbend 
the vigour of our christian virtue. He hath his 
setters to provoke and exasperate, and thereby to 
let loose our tongues in railing and reviling, or 

L 2 



148 



else to employ our hands in murder and bloodshed. 
He lures us with the prospect of injurious gain, 
to engage us thereby in fraud and extortion ; and 
if money be the bait most likely to take with us, 
he points out the shortest way to be rich, and to 
make the most of it. He flatters our ambition 
with the honours of this world, that he may with 
the more advantage deprive us of our interest in 
the honours of another, He substitutes appearance 
and shadow to cheat us the better of truth and 
substance ; and when his arts and stratagems prove 
unsuccessful, he then betakes himself to open force ; 
then he proceeds in the way of fury and persecu- 
tion against the servants of God, giving them no 
rest nor respite, but trying all conclusions which 
he can think of, for their ruin. Thus, in times of 
peace, he proceeds by art and stratagem ; and in 
times of persecution by violence and force. 

2. Wherefore, my beloved brethren, we should 
equally be armed and provided against the force 
and fraud of our ghostly enemy ; and should be 
as diligent in resisting him as he is in attacking us. 
And because his greatest and most usual resort is 
to those weapons which fly in the dark unobserved, 
and the less notice we take of these attempts, the 
more likely we are to suffer damage from them, 
we should therefore be the more careful in our 
endeavours to discover and countermine these 
depths of satan, amongst which emulation and 
envy are not the least considerable. So that if 



149 



any man will set himself to consider this matter 
rightly, and will go to the bottom of it, he will 
find that no duty is more strictly incumbent upon 
every Christian, than this of guarding, with all his 
might and caution, against the mischiefs springing 
out of these unhappy fountains. For indeed the 
danger is great and imminent, whilst he is thus 
entangled in the snare of his subtle adversary > and 
the envy he bears to his brother gradually proceeds 
to a settled rancour, that the edge of his own 
weapon should be turned upon himself, and wound 
and ruin him, whilst he is not enough aware of it. 
To set this whole matter in a better light we will 
trace this evil to its original, and take our view of 
it from its first beginning. 

3. Let us then observe, as we propounded, 
when, upon what occasion, and in what manner, 
this mischief had its rise, that we may the more 
easily and successfully escape the snare of it. In 
the infancy of the world the devil himself w r as 
split upon this rock, and drew in others to share 
with him in his guilt and punishment. He, though 
fortified with the powers of his angelic nature, 
though in a state of high acceptance and favour 
with God, yet broke out into all the rage of jealousy 
and envy when he saw that man was made after 
the image of God ; his envy had ruined him before 
it tempted him to ruin others ; he was himself in 
bondage before he sought to bring any one else 
into it; and was lost in his own person ere he 



150 



attempted to undo another. Indeed whilst his 
own envy prompted him to lead away man from 
the blessing of immortality, he fell himself from 
the blessed state to which he was created. Now 
how great, my brethren, must that evil be which 
proved so fatal to an angel of light ? Which had 
weight enough to sink a being of such an illustrious 
and exalted nature, and to deceive even the great 
deceiver ? Envy could not otherwise make such a 
fatal progress if the devil were not its author and 
encourager, and if there were not a great pro- 
pensity in mankind to follow his example, as it is 
written : " Through envy of the devil death came 
into the world ; and they who hold of his side do 
imitate him." From this unhappy principle the 
first quarrel which ever was in the world com- 
menced between the two brothers, and murder 
was the consequence ; whilst unrighteous Cain 
envied righteous Abel, and the good man fell a 
sacrifice to the wicked one through the suggestions 
of this mischievous passion ; the rage of which had 
such a fatal issue, and finished so black a scene of 
viilany, that neither the endearments of so near a 
relation, nor the heinousness of such an act, nor 
the fear of God, nor the sure vengeance which 
could not but follow upon such an atrocious sin, 
had any influence towards preventing the attempt. 
It was this passion which made Esau Jacob's 
enemy : because his father Isaac had blessed Jacob, 
therefore did Esau labour to persecute and injure 



151 



him ; and 'twas envy which ministered fuel to all 
his fire. And Joseph was sold by his brethren 
from no better motive ; for after he had revealed 
to them the advancement portended to him from 
his dream, in a plain and friendly manner, without 
reserve or design, as one brother should do to 
another, their envious minds could not, it seems, 
endure the thought of it ! And what else was it 
which provoked Saul to hate David, and engaged 
him in various attempts to murder that excellent 
person, but his victory gained over the enemy 
Goliah. All the rage and venom which proceeded 
from Saul to David, sprang, I say, entirely, from this 
mischievous fountain. And to waste no more time 
upon instances of particular persons, we may 
observe a whole community lost from the same 
fatality. For were not, I beseech you, the Jews 
undone through the envy they bore to Christ 
instead of the belief they owed him ? They 
envied the great and marvellous works performed 
by him ; and whilst the blindness was upon them, 
which they thence contracted, their error continued, 
and they could not open their eyes to see the finger 
of God in the miracles which he wrought. 

4. Upon these considerations, my beloved 
brethren, I hope you will be all prevailed with to 
be ever upon your guard against this fatal mischief, 
and never suffer it to gain admission into your 
breasts, which have been solemnly dedicated to 
the service ol' God. Let the fate of others be 



152 



improved to your benefit, and let the punishment 
of the unwary teach you caution. No man can 
have reason to believe that this is a single species 
of sin, that it is of a narrow compass, or of a small 
extent. No ! for envy is of a spreading nature, 
and fruitful in ill effects. It is the root of almost 
all the evils which can be named, the spring-head 
of various misfortunes, a nursery of manifold vices, 
and furnishes the occasion to all sorts of sin. 
Hatred and enmity have thence their rise ; 
covetousness grows upon that root, when a man 
cannot be content with such things as he hath, 
because he observes another to have more ; 
ambition springs out of this unhappy fountain, 
when others have more honours and offices heaped 
upon them than ourselves : and thus whilst the 
powers of our souls are under the government of 
this restless principle, and blinded by this haughty 
passion, all fear of God, and all subjection to 
Christ, are quite laid aside, and we think not at all 
upon a day of retribution. Pride and cruelty, 
impatience and breach of faith, wrath and discord, 
have all their turns of influence upon us ; nor do 
we continue our own masters, after having thus 
put the government of our conduct into other 
hands. Tims brotherly love is lost, and the bonds 
of peace are broken ; the truth of the gospel is 
sophisticated, the unity of the church divided. 

5. What a strange corruption is this of human 
understanding, to envy any man either for his 



153 



virtue, or his fortune ; to turn our hatred 
either upon the merits of his person, or the 
mercies of providence ; to make another's 
good fortune our own ill fortune ; to torment 
ourselves with the prosperity of the great and 
flourishing, and to interpret their glory as our own 
shame ; to put ourselves to the torture, and to 
play booty with our own repose and happiness ; to 
break the peace of our minds, and to let in upon 
them a set of repining vexatious reflections ; 
neither to eat nor drink with ease or comfort ; to 
be always sighing, lamenting, grieving ; to have 
no respite from the gnawing passion ; but day and 
night to feel it plaguing us with never-ceasing 
demands ! Other sins have some boundaries pre- 
scribed to them ; and when the mischief they aim 
at is perfected, you hear of no farther pretensions 
from them. But envy is endless, and knows no 
bounds ; it abides by the man possessed with it, 
and never leaves him ; but the greater the successes 
are which the envied person meets with, so much 
the stronger doth the envious man's passion grow, 
and increases upon him without measure or limita- 
tion. Hence you may observe him always with a 
threatening countenance, with a fierce and ill- 
natured look ; his complexion pale and sallow, 
his lips trembling, his teeth gnashing, his words 
perverse, disjointed and reviling, his hands ever 
ready for mischief, and for executing any purposes 
of his enraged heart : And therefore the psalmist 



154 

well hath cautioned us, saying: " Fret not thyself 
because of him who prospereth in his way." And 
again : " The wicked plotteth against the just, 
and gnasheth upon him with his teeth. The Lord 
shall laugh at him : for he seeth that his day is 
coming." These are the men who are stigmatised 
by the apostle, where he saith of them •. " The 
poison of asps is under their lips : Whose mouth 
is full of cursing and bitterness : Their feet are 
swift to shed blood : Destruction and misery are 
in their ways : And the way of peace have they 
not known : There is no fear of God before their 
eyes." The mischief and the danger of wounds 
inflicted by a sword are infinitely less than these : 
Where the hurt appears to the naked eye, there 
is some hope of a cure, because the case may 
immediately have relief from the application of 
proper helps ; but the wounds which envy inflicts 
upon the soul of the person haunted by it, are 
secret and invisible, and therefore will not admit 
the application of proper remedies, but gnaw the 
very heart, and prey upon the vitals of the unhappy 
patient, unobserved and undiscovered. Do you 
then, whoever you are who have the misfortune 
of being subject to this hateful passion, do you 
consider with yourself, that you are no man's 
enemy so much as you are your own. Whomsoever 
you persecute with your malice and ill will, it may 
very possibly and probably be in his power to 
avoid you ; but you can never avoid yourself ; 



155 



wheresoever you are, your greatest enemy always 
accompanies you ; he is lodged in your bosom, 
attached to you by such indissoluble bonds, that 
you can never hope to be rid of him ; so that you 
must always drag your chain along with you, must 
continue in a state of perpetual bondage, without 
any allays of comfort to your sad condition, or 
any prospect of deliverance out of it. To perse- 
cute with your malice a man who is interested in 
the grace of God, is a mischief so deeply rooted, 
that you will never dislodge it ; and to hate a man 
only for his happiness, is such an unhappiness 
upon yourself, as admits no remedy. 

6. Wherefore, my beloved brethren, our blessed 
Lord having in view the mischief and danger of 
this passion, and being desirous to prevent its fatal 
consequences, made the following answer to his 
disciples, when they were solicitous to know 
" which of them should be greatest he (said our 
Lord) " who is least amongst you shall be great." 
By this reply he cut off all occasion and pretence 
of envy, and drew off all the fuel which could, in 
any manner, feed that perverse affection. A dis- 
ciple of Christ must have no such emulation in 
him ; we can have no contention nor strife about 
greatness, who are to be exalted only by our 
humility, and have learnt to please our master, by 
our content with being little. The apostle St. 
Paul hath therefore well reminded us who have 
been enlightened with the grace of Christ, and 



156 



escaped the midnight darkness of our former con- 
versation, to have our works and our practice 
such, as may bear and become that light : " The 
night is far spent, the day is at hand ; let us there- 
fore cast off the works of darkness, and let us put 
on the armour of light. Let us walk honestly, as 
in the day ; not in rioting and drunkenness, not 
in chambering and wantonness, not in strife and 
envying." As if he had said, " If indeed the 
" darkness hath forsaken you, and quitted the 
"possession of your soul; if the night be truly 
<{ far spent with you, and its obscurity to a good 
" degree dispelled ; if the brightness of the day 
"hath shone in upon you, and you are really 
" become the children of light : do thence- 
" forwards the will of Christ, who is himself the 
"day-star, and the light to lighten you: and 
" involve not yourself in the clouds and darkness 
"of envy, nor blind your eyes and put out the 
" light of peace and charity, through the sugges- 
tions of that hellish passion." Now it is evident 
from what the apostle St. John hath declared upon 
this subject, that whosoever envies and hates his 
brother, hath the guilt of murder imputed to him : 
" Whosoever hateth his brother is a murderer : and 
ye know that no murderer hath eternal life abiding 
in him." And again: "He that saith he is in 
the light, and hateth his brother, is in darkness 
even until now, and walketh in darkness, and 
knowetli not whither he goeth, because that dark- 



157 



ness hath blinded his eyes." And he that hateth 
his brother, walketh in darkness, and knoweth 
not whither he goeth ; for he goeth, indeed, 
the strait way to hell, without being aware of it, 
and blindly pushes forwards to his own destruction 
leaving behind him the light of Christ, who hath 
called upon him to reclaim him, and hath told 
him, saying : " I am the light of the world : he 
that followeth me shall not walk in darkness, but 
shall have the light of life." Now the man who 
followeth Christ, is he who treads in Christ's 
steps, keeps close to his commandments, walks in 
the way appointed for him, and follows the pattern 
which Christ hath set him ; according to what the 
apostle St. Peter hath written for our instruction, 
saying : " Christ also suffered for us, leaving us 
an example, that ye should follow his steps." 

7. We should, upon this occasion, call to mind, 
under what name and title Christ hath described 
his people and his flock ; he calls them sheep, in 
token of that innocence which is the distinguish- 
ing badge of their christian profession ; and lambs, 
to represent that harmless undesigning temper 
which should ever mark their character. How 
comes it then to pass, that the wolf should at any 
time lurk under the sheep's clothing ? That the 
man, who calls himself, and pretends to be, a 
christian, should scandalize the fold to which 
he is a retainer ; whereas to wear the badges of a 
servant of Christ and not to go in the path which 



158 



Christ hath appointed for us, is indeed to betray 
that holy profession, to slur the character, and to 
leave behind us the way of salvation. Christ 
himself, we are sure, hath taught us otherwise; 
and hath told us, that such only shall find life and 
immortality as keep his commandments ; that 
such only are wise "as hear his sayings and do 
them," as also that those teachers " should be 
called greatest in the kingdom of heaven who 
should both do and teach them for that then, 
and then only, would the teacher's sound and 
wholesome doctrine be of use to him, if what he 
should deliver in words, he would also exemplify 
in practice. There was no one thing more 
frequently inculcated, or more strongly pressed, 
by our Saviour upon all his followers, than this ; 
that as he loved them, so they should love one 
another. But now what obedience is paid to this 
precept ? how is either the peace or the love of 
Christ preserved by such as through the instiga- 
tions of envy cannot bring themselves to live in 
unity or charity with their brethren ? Wherefore 
when the apostle was displaying the excellencies 
of peace and charity, and teaching, that no 
degrees of faith, no liberality in alms, nor any 
measure of suffering in the cause of Christ, would 
be at all available, without keeping the unity of 
the Spirit in the bond of peace ; he added more- 
over, " charity suffereth long, and is kind ; charity 
envieth not thereby strongly hinting, that he, 



{ 



159 

and he only, was likely to maintain charity, who 
was long-suffering and kind, and a perfect stranger 
to all envious emulation. Thus in another pas- 
sage, when he was admonishing the man, who 
was full of the Holy Ghost, and who by his second 
birth was become one of the children of God, to 
breathe most earnestly the things of God : he intro- 
duced his address in the following manner : " And 
I, brethren, could not speak unto you as unto 
spiritual, but as unto carnal, even as unto babes 
in Christ. I have fed you with milk, and not 
with meat : for hitherto ye were not able to bear 
it, neither yet now are ye able. For ye are yet 
carnal : for whereas there is among you envying, 
and strife, and divisions, are ye not carnal, and 
walk as men ?" 

8. All the sins of the flesh, my beloved brethren, 
should be subdued ; and our religion should prove 
its strength and power, in mortifying the deeds of 
the body, lest by relapsing into the conversation of 
our old man, we should entangle ourselves in an 
inextricable and fatal snare, concerning which the 
same apostle hath given us this prudential and 
wholesome warning: "Therefore, brethren, we 
are debtors, not to the flesh, to live after the flesh. 
For if ye live after the flesh, ye shall die ; but if 
ye through the Spirit do mortify the deeds of the 
body, ye shall live. For as many as are led by the 
Spirit of God, they are the sons of God." If then 
we are in earnest the children of God ; if we are 



160 



already become his temples ; if upon our receiving 
the Holy Ghost at our baptism, we have engaged 
in a course of spiritual and holy living ; if we have 
lift up our eyes and our thoughts from earth to 
heaven, and have employed our souls in religious 
aspirations towards God and Christ, and do breathe 
only the things pertaining to them, then let our 
practice speak for us what shall in every part of it 
be conformable to these sentiments and apprehen- 
sions, according to what we find recommended to 
us by the holy apostle, saying : " If ye then be 
risen with Christ, seek those things which are 
above, where Christ sitteth on the right hand of 
God. Set your affections on things above, not on 
things on the earth. For ye are dead, and your 
life is hid with Christ in God. When Christ, who 
is our life, shall appear, then shall ye also, appear 
with him in glory." We therefore, who at our 
baptism have undertook to be dead to the sins of 
the flesh, and to be buried with Christ, and to put 
off the old man, and have risen together with 
Christ unto a new and an heavenly birth, should 
think and act agreeably to such professions ; as 
the same apostle hath elsewhere directed and 
admonished us, saying : " The first man is of the 
earth, earthy ; the second man is the Lord from 
heaven. As is the earthy, such are they also that 
are earthy ; and as is the heavenly, such are they 
also that are heavenly. And as we have borne 
the image of the earthy, we shall also bear the 



161 



image of the heavenly." But now we can never 
bear this heavenly image unless we pursue that 
resemblance to Christ upon which we have already 
entered. Thus, and thus only, will the blessed 
change expected from us be perfected, and we 
shall become what before we were not, if the 
lustre of our new birth do shine in us with all 
advantage, if the rules we proceed by appear 
every way worthy of God their author, and if he 
be glorified in all our actions. To this he hath 
encouraged us by repeated exhortations, and hath 
promised all fit returns to those who shall so glorify 
him : " Them that honour me I will honour, and 
they that despise me shall be lightly esteemed. " 
For a participation of this honour, and for such a 
degree of resemblance between God the Father 
and his children, Christ our Lord in his gospel was 
endeavouring to form and to prepare us, saying : 
" Ye have heard that it hath been said, thou shalt 
love thy neighbour amd hate thine enemy. But 
I say unto you, love your enemies, bless them that 
curse you, do good to them that hate you, and 
pray for them which despitefully use you and 
persecute you ; that ye may be the children of 
your Father which is in heaven ; for he maketh 
his sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and 
sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust." 
Now if men take a pleasure in the resemblance of 
their children to them, and the satisfaction of a 
father is encreased by observing a similitude 

M 



162 



between the root and its branches, and by seeing 
his own features copied out in his offspring, why 
should we not conceive in God somewhat near 
akin to such a reasonable pleasure, upon children 
being born to him after a spiritual manner, in 
whom his image shall shine, and by whom his 
glorious perfections shall be transcribed and imi- 
tated ? What an handle of triumph, and of holy 
exaltation, will it be to you, if God shall not 
pronounce of you, and such as you, what once he 
did of his people the Jews : " I have nourished 
and brought up children, and they have rebelled 
against me" — but if instead of any such complaint 
against you, Christ shall commend and applaud 
your conduct, and invite you to receive the reward 
of it in those transporting words : " Come ye 
blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared 
for you from the foundation of the world." 

9. With these, and such like considerations, my 
beloved brethren, we should endeavour to arm and 
strengthen our virtue against the several assaults 
of our ghostly enemy. The book of God should 
be before our eyes, our hands should work the 
thing which is good, and we should set the Lord 
always before our thoughts. We should pray 
without ceasing, and never be weary of well-doing. 
We should be occupied evermore in some spiritual 
employment ; that in what part soever the tempter 
shall form his attack against us, he may find every 
pass well guarded, and all the powers of our souls 



163 



in readiness to resist him. There are more crowns 
than one for the christian to aim at ; the martyr's 
crown is not our only one ; but even times of peace 
and settlement present us with occasions of trying 
our strength and courage in our spiritual warfare, 
and thence of being crowned with the trophies of 
victory upon our successful struggles. There is a 
crown due to that victory which overcometh our 
lusts ; another to the resistance we shall make 
against the impressions of wrath, and a sense of 
injurious treatment; and a third to our contempt 
of superfluous wealth. Thus our faith hath also 
its proper commendation, when, in view of our 
future recompense, we endure affliction patiently. 
Our humility is entitled to its portion of honour 
when affluence and prosperity do not swell us with 
pride and insolence. He whose dispositions lead 
him to have pity on the poor, and to relieve the 
exigences of the necessitous and distressed, gains 
thereby the recompense of a treasure in heaven : 
and he who is a stranger to emulation and envy, 
and loves his brethren in simplicity of heart and 
unity of affection, becomes interested in the reward 
which is assigned to the peaceable and charitable. 
The race of these several virtues we all run daily ; 
it is our proper business and employment to press 
forwards without loss of time to these crowns of 
righteousness. Wherefore that you, who have 
hitherto been governed by the malignant influences 
of an envious disposition, may not lose your share 

m 2 



164 



in these several trophies of honour and victory, 
you must be persuaded to lay aside all perverseness 
of mind and temper, and to pursue those courses 
which may lead you directly to the way of salva- 
tion ; to weed out of your heart those thorns and 
briars which would choke it, and to receive into it 
those seeds of righteousness which may spring up, 
and bring forth fruit abundantly. Wherefore be 
persuaded, I again beseech you, to love hence- 
forwards those whom before you hated ; and 
embrace with a cordial and sincere affection those 
whom you have hitherto envied. Turn your views 
towards paradise, to which Cain found no return 
when envy once had moved him to kill his brother. 
Entertain yourself with meditations upon the 
kingdom of heaven, to which none will be admitted 
who are not disposed to live in unity and love. 
Remember, too, that none but peace-makers are 
entitled to the name or character of the children 
of God ; none but such as act agreeably to their 
heavenly parentage, and are united together like 
God and Christ. Imagine yourself, therefore, 
appearing before the presence of God, and ac- 
counting to him for each step and passage of your 
past conversation ; and consider that as you hope 
to see him hereafter with joy, you must so behave 
that he may see your actions here with pleasure : 
and as you expect to please him for ever in his 
kingdom of glory, you must labour to please him 
now beforehand in the kingdom of grace. 



TRACT V. 



ON THE CASE OF THE LAPSED. 

Upon the death of Decius, the Church of Christ was soon 
and gradually restored to peace, and the persecution 
which was promoted by his edicts and authority was 
presently ended. Many who had yielded to the force 
of temptation, and had forsaken their religion when 
it could not be adhered to without great difficulties 
and dangers, were now desirous to be readmitted into 
the church without any previous penance. Cyprian, 
therefore, wrote this treatise, on the case of the Lapsed, 
to urge such as had fallen to consider the heinousness 
of their sin, and to exhort them to all becoming proofs 
of their hearty sorrow for it, before they could be 
received to communion. 

1. The church, we see, my beloved brethren, 
hath once more peace restored to her ; and though 
her desponding sons considered it as an event 
extremely improbable, and her false ones pro- 
nounced it utterly impossible ; yet, through the 
assistance of God to his servants, and by his just 
judgments upon their enemies, the profession of 
our religion is now no longer dangerous. The 
happy expected day is come to all our wishes, 
wherein, after the dismal terrors of a long and 
thick darkness, the glorious light of the gospel is 
now at liberty to shine upon the world, with a full 
and undiminished lustre. We look with pleasure 



166 



upon those happy persons who have derived 
immortal honour upon themselves by the confes- 
sion of their blessed master's name in a time of 
danger \ we deservedly admire the steadfastness of 
their faith and virtue, we embrace them with 
ardent affections, and salute them with the 
religious kiss of peace and charity. Behold then 
this unspotted company of soldiers, serving under 
the captain of our salvation, breaking the force of 
their enemy, and weakening the fiercest assaults 
of persecution by their firmness and constancy, 
and their readiness to undergo imprisonment, or 
even death itself, for the sake of Christ. Hail 
gallant conquerors ! You have made a noble stand 
against all the endeavours of the secular powers, 
to seduce you from your duty \ you have exhibited 
a spectacle every way worthy of your maker's 
notice, and of your brethren's imitation ! Your 
lips have scorned to deny their religious testimony 
to Christ in the day of trial, on whom they had 
solemnly before professed to believe ! Your hands, 
which had been used to no work but God's, refused 
to assist at the profane altars of the Gentiles ! 
Your mouths which had been sanctified with the 
food of heaven, and with the body and blood of 
your Saviour, would not, after that defile them- 
selves with the impure remains of meat offered to 
idols ! With what joy and ecstasy doth the church, 
your mother, receive you to her bosom, upon 
your successful return from this glorious conflict ! 



167 



With what eulogies and gratulations dotti she open 
wide her gates to you, that you may enter together 
in a full body, bringing back with you from the 
field of battle the trophies of your victory ! 

2. But amidst all our triumphs and gratulations, 
for the crowns of our martyrs, and for the honors 
which our confessors have gained by their glorious 
achievements, and for the unshaken firmness of 
the rest of our brotherhood, we have tTiis sad 
abatement of our joy ; that the enemy hath torn 
out a part of our bowels from us, and in the heat 
of this fierce engagement, hath made some fatal 
inroads upon the flock of Christ. What then is 
there left for me, my beloved brethren, either to 
say, or do, under such a variety of sentiments and 
passions as crowd into my mind upon this sad 
occasion ? Tears will better express my concern 
than any words can do, for this grievous wound 
inflicted upon our body, and for this lamentable 
diminution of our numbers, by the force or fraud 
of our enemy. For who is there amongst us who 
hath so hard an heart, or so little affected with 
christian charity, as to stand unmoved amidst the 
ruins of his brethren, or to look with dry eyes 
upon the various miseries of the few who are left 
behind them ; and not rather to express the first 
emotions of his mind in sighs and tears, than to 
form them into words, or to utter them in vocal 
sounds ? I condole with you, my brethren, and 
my bowels yearn towards you j nor is it any 



168 



mitigation of my grief to reflect upon my own 
particular innocence or safety ; since a good 
shepherd always suffers when any of his flock are 
wounded. Accordingly, in heart and in affection 
I am closely linked to each of you ; the weight of 
your sorrows, and the desolation of our common 
family, lie heavy upon my spirits, and are ready 
to overwhelm me. With them who mourn I mourn 
also, " I weep with them who weep and I 
imagine myself in the same condition with thern 
who are fallen ; those darts of the enemy which 
flew so thick amongst the flock, pierced my bowels 
when any of my flock were hurt by them ; the 
assaults of the persecution tormented my mind 
continually, though they could not reach my body; 
and sympathy made me a sufferer in each advan- 
tage gained over any of my brethren. 

3. We may not, however, my dearest friends, 
dissemble the truth ; nor should we suffer our 
reflections upon the darkness and horror of the 
late calamity so far to possess or to blind our 
thoughts, as to shut out the light of heavenly 
instruction. If we can find out the cause of our 
misfortune, we shall the better be enabled to heal 
up the wound which hath been given by it. Our 
Lord and Master hath a mind to prove us ; and 
as a long continuance of peace and security had 
relaxed the vigour of that holy discipline which 
was delivered to us from above, it grew necessary 
thence to awaken our sluggish faith, and to rouse 



169 



up our dormant principles by some severe dispen- 
sation of providence ; and when our sins had 
merited a much sorer punishment, our merciful 
and indulgent Lord so tempered its severity, that 
whatever hath passed had more the face of a trial 
than of a persecution. All were set upon an 
immeasurable increase of gain ; and, forgetting 
how the first converts to our holy religion had 
behaved under the personal direction and care of 
our Lord's apostles, or how all ought in after- 
times to carry themselves, their love of money 
was their darling passion, and the master-spring 
of all their actions. The religion of the clergy 
slackened and decayed ; the faith of priests and 
deacons grew languid and inactive ; works of 
charity were discontinued, and an universal licence 
and corruption prevailed every where, and had 
tainted all ranks and orders of men amongst us. 
What measures of punishment could now be thought 
too severe for such raging provocations ? Espe- 
cially when the word of God had already denounced 
his judgments against such as should disobey him : 
" If his children forsake my law, and walk not in 
my judgments ; if they break my statutes, and 
keep not my commandments ; then will I visit 
their transgression with the rod, and their iniquity 
with stripes. " These things have been told us 
beforehand, and we have had a fair warning given 
us ; but we, regardless of the law and of all 
obedience to it, have brought things to sucli a 



170 



pass by our manifold offences, that since we would 
not hearken by fair means to the precepts of our 
Lord and Master, he hath now resorted to rougher 
measures ; and thus hath at once corrected our 
misdeeds and tried the firmness of our faith, by a 
judicial process. Nor yet did we turn unto him, 
even when it was so very late ; nor did we endure, 
as we should have done, with due courage and 
constancy, his chastisement nor his proof of us. 
As soon as ever the enemy threw out his menaces, 
a great number of our brethren betrayed their trust, 
and revolted from the faith of Christ ; it was not 
here the force of the persecution which sunk them, 
but they fell of their own accord, before any 
violence offered them, and so contracted the guilt 
of a chosen and unconstrained apostacy. 

4. What, I beseech you, could be the new, 
unexpected, unforeseen incident, which tempted 
these men to depart so suddenly from their obli- 
gations to Christ and his religion ? Have not the 
prophets, and the apostles after them, apprised us 
of these things beforehand ? Have not persons 
inspired by the Holy Ghost foretold to us the 
sufferings of good men, and the injurious treat- 
ment they should meet with from heathen hands ? 
Is not the holy scripture full of encouragements 
to us to persevere in the profession of our faith, 
exhorting and persuading us to " worship the 
Lord our God, and him only to serve ?" Hath it 
not denounced the wrath of God against such as 



171 



" worship that which their own fingers have made ;" 
against the man who so " boweth down," and the 
great man who so " humbleth himself," saying in 
the name of God, " I will not forgive them ?" Do 
we not read moreover of God himself proclaiming 
and threatening, " He that sacrificeth unto any 
God, save unto the Lord only, he shall be utterly 
destroyed ?" Afterwards in the gospel do we not 
find our blessed Lord, who in his discourses was 
a preacher of that righteousness whereof in his 
actions he was a punctual practiser, thus directing 
us by the two-fold guidance of precept and example, 
do we not find him, I say, foretelling to us as well 
the present as future transactions ; what is now 
doing, and what we have yet farther to expect ? 
Hath he not denounced an everlasting punishment 
to such as shall deny him, and promised an eternal 
reward to such as shall confess him ? Some, to 
their shame and scandal be it ever remembered, 
have no more regarded all this than if it had never 
been declared to them. They did not stay to have 
the question put to them before they denied their 
Lord and Saviour ; they did not wait for the 
formality of being apprehended, but advanced 
of their own accord to the place of sacrifice. 
Unhappy wretch ! Wherefore dost thou take the 
needless pains of carrying thither a victim with 
thee to sacrifice ? Thou art thyself that victim ! 
Thou makest a sacrifice of thine own soul ! 
Thou hast offered up at this altar thine own sal- 



172 



vation, and thy faith and hope are consumed in 
its fatal fires. 

5. Nor do I mean by any thing I have said 
upon the case of our fallen brethren, to load it 
with undue aggravations; I would only persuade 
them to seek their peace in a proper manner, and 
to give the church a becoming satisfaction. For 
since we find it written, " they which lead thee 
cause thee to err, and destroy the way of thy 
paths certainly he who sooths up the sinner with 
flattering words adds fuel to his lusts, multiplieth 
transgressions instead of lessening them, and is so 
far from laying them under any restraint or dis- 
couragement, that he abets and cherishes them by 
his mis-timed softness ; whereas he who plies them 
with rougher medicines and a coarser treatment, 
will be found to have assisted his brethren with 
useful counsel, and thereby will prove instrumental 
towards their salvation. " As many as I love (saith 
our blessed Lord J I rebuke and chasten." A bishop 
therefore should follow the pattern set him by his 
great High-Priest, and so should not flatter the 
sinner with deceitful and soft expressions, but 
should go to the very bottom of his case, and 
should look out, not for palatable, but for whole- 
some remedies. He would betray great ignorance 
of his profession, who for fear of putting his patient 
to pain, by opening of his wound, should softly 
handle it, and skin it over, and close it up, leaving 
it uncleansed of the corruption lodged in it : yet 



173 



if the knife be not spared, the patient for the 
present, 'tis likely, will complain, but he will thank 
the operator afterwards, when he finds his recovery 
hath been owing to such a management. Thus, 
my brethren, it should be with us ; we have a new 
mischief broken out amongst us, and, as if the 
storm of our late persecution had not done us 
sufficient damage, another evil is added to it, not 
likely to prove less fatal, though it approaches with 
a serener aspect, and under the colour of tender- 
ness and compassion. Through the rashness of 
some in granting, and of others in asking, the 
terms of communion are become too easy, the reins 
of discipline are shamefully relaxed, in opposition 
to the vigour and firmness wherewith the whole 
tenor of the gospel, and the laws of God and 
Christ have commanded them to be held. In 
short, a delusive insignificant absolution is at random 
given, which will prove dangerous to the givers 
and useless to the receivers. It is just in effect 
the very case I have mentioned ; it is skinning 
over a mortal wound, and fixing the malignant 
humour to prevent the pain which would arise 
from dislodging it. Wherefore then doth any 
man pretend to offer to communicate with those, 
and thereby to prevent their penitential sorrow, 
who ought to spend a great deal of their time in 
lamentation and mourning, and in beseeching of 
God his compassion and mercy ? All this indul- 
gence is really no more beneficial to men who 



174 



have been so unhappy as to fall from their stead- 
fastness, than tempestuous weather to the fruits 
of the earth ; than the murrain to cattle ; or a 
dreadful storm to the mariner. They who are so 
forward in dispensing it, subvert the only true 
foundation which the lapsed can have of any hope 
in God ; they tear up, as it were, the tree from 
its proper root ; their discourse is fatal and con- 
tagious, like poison ; their conduct resembles that 
of unskilful pilots, who, instead of conducting their 
vessel safe into harbour, split it upon the rocks. 
The peace thus given by them, upon such easy 
terms, is far from answering its genuine designs 
and purposes, that it directly thwarts them ; so far 
from admitting the persons receiving it to the 
advantages of a just and regular communion, that 
'tis really an additional stop to them in the way of 
their salvation. It amounts indeed to all the effects 
of a new and another persecution ; 'tis a stratagem 
only of a different sort, whereby the great and 
subtle enemy of our souls makes his attempts upon 
our brethren who have fallen in the late grievous 
trial ; he would have them desist from all farther 
lamentation ; he would wipe out of their hearts all 
remembrance of their past offence ; it is none of his 
interest that they should deprecate the wrath of 
God, or pass through all the forms of a long and 
laborious penance ; he knows, and therefore would 
have them forget that it is written, " Remember 
therefore from whence thou art fallen, and repent." 



175 



6. Let no persons therefore venture to impose 
upon, and deceive themselves ; no man's pity can 
here avail them. No one can pardon the sins 
committed against God, but he alone who bare 
our sins, who suffered for our sakes, and whom 
God delivered up for our offences. It is impossible 
that man should be greater than God, or equal to 
him ; nor is it therefore within the power of man, 
who is the servant, to forgive in any case a sin of 
so deep a dye as this, which is committed against 
our common Lord and Master ; and the unhappy 
offender who should in this case expect it, would 
only add to his other misfortune the curse denounced 
by God against such as should trust in man. We 
find it written of Moses, that he interceded for 
the sins of the people, and yet their sins were not 
forgiven them. " This people have sinned a great 
sin, and have made them gods of gold. Yet now, 
if thou wilt forgive their sin ; and if not, blot me, 
I pray thee, out of thy book which thou hast 
written. And the Lord said unto Moses, whoso- 
ever hath sinned against me, him will I blot out 
of my book." Though he were the friend of God, 
and had been honoured with the singular preroga- 
tive of speaking with God face to face ; yet he 
could not, we may observe, succeed in this petition, 
nor had his intercession sufficient weight with it to 
appease the wrath of his offended majesty. We 
read the commendation of Jeremiah from God 
himself, saying of him and to him : " Before I 



17« 



formed thee in the belly I knew thee ; and before 
thoa earnest forth out of the womb I sanctified 
thee, and I ordained thee a prophet unto the 
nations." Yet when the man thus honoured and 
distinguished would, upon divers occasions, have 
interceded for his people, we find him restrained 
by God, saying : " Pray not thou for this people, 
neither lift up cry nor prayer for them, neither 
make intercession to me, for I will not hear when 
they make their supplication in the day of their 
trouble/' Who could pretend to be more righteous 
than Noah, who, when the earth was filled with 
wickedness, was the only person found in it 
exempt from the general contagion ? Whose case 
could be more glorious than Daniel's ? Whose 
faith was there upon earth more likely to be the 
parent of many martyrdoms than his ? W 7 ho found 
such acceptance with God ? Who entered the lists 
so frequently, came out of them victorious, and 
survived his manifold conquests ? Who was more 
abounding than Job in works of mercy ? Who 
more firm than he under all temptations ? Who 
more patient under all afflictions ? More constant 
in adherence to the truth, or more humbled under 
an awful sense of God's majesty and power ? Yet 
God hath declared that there were cases wherein 
he would not hearken even to these men's inter- 
cession. For we find upon the prophet Ezekiel's 
interceding for the transgression of his people, 
that he had this for answer : " When the land 



.17? 



sinneth against me by trespassing grievously, then 
will I stretch out mine hand upon it, and will 
break the staff of the bread thereof, and will send 
famine upon it, and will cut off man and beast 
from it : Though these three men, Noah, Daniel, 
and Job, were in it, they should deliver but their 
own souls by their righteousness, saitli the Lord 
God." We see, then, that the most righteous and 
powerful of human intercessors do not always 
succeed, nor always anticipate the determinations 
of God. The issue is still in his power, and he 
reserves to himself the right of disposing it as he 
pleases. 

7. Our Lord hath said in the gospel : "Whoso- 
ever therefore shall confess me before men, him 
will I confess also before my Father which is in 
heaven. But whosoever shall deny me before 
men, him will I also deny before my Father which 
is in heaven." Now we must not imagine that 
the gospel of Christ will make good one of its 
engagements, and drop the other : Both of them 
must stand, or neither must ; wherefore if they 
who deny Christ are not obnoxious to the punish- 
ment denounced against them, neither are they 
who confess him entitled to the reward which is 
propounded to them. If the faith which enables 
some to come off victorious shall surely receive its 
crown, the treachery of others who are prevailed 
with to depart from it, shall as surely meet with 
its punishment. What dreadful instances indeed 

N 



178 



have we seen, and do yet see continually, of 
God's vengeance executed upon such as have 
denied him ! How lamentable were the ends they 
came to ! And though this is not the proper time 
of punishment and retribution, yet even here, and 
in this present time, they cannot, we see, escape 
it. A notable proof and example this, that our 
Lord forsakes the person who denies him ; and 
that whatever such a one shall receive of the 
outward sign will be utterly insignificant as to any 
inward or saving purpose. How T many of our 
lapsed brethren 3 who will not submit to penance, 
and to a solemn confession of their heinous sin, 
are thereupon seized by evil spirits, and driven into 
despair and madness ! But we heed not multiply 
examples to this purpose ; since there are hardly 
more instances of persons in this kind offending 
than there are varieties of punishment observably 
attending them. The use to be made of such 
examples will be, not so much considering what 
other persons have suffered upon this occasion, 
as what each man, for himself, hath deserved to 
suffer. No one therefore should flatter himself 
with a belief that he hath escaped the judgment 
of God, because his punishment is, perhaps, 
deferred : quite otherwise ; he should rather thence 
be apprehensive that he is reserved to a sorer 
punishment, and to a more solemn judgment. 

8, Wherefore, my beloved brethren, let every 
one of you, who have offended, make an humble 



179 



and solemn confession of his sin whilst he is yet in 
the land of the living. Let him turn unto the 
Lord his God with all his heart, and express a 
becoming sense of his transgression in all humility 
and contrition of spirit. He himself, indeed, hath 
taught us how we should address him for pardon : 
" Turn ye even to me with all your heart, and 
with fasting, and with weeping, and with mourn- 
ing : And rend your heart, and not your garments." 
Daniel, notwithstanding all the manifold graces 
wherewith he was adorned, notwithstanding his 
faith and his spotless innocence, and notwithstand- 
ing the declared acceptance and favour which his 
several virtues found at the hands of God, yet 
this holy man, I say, endeavoured to interest 
himself in the mercies of God, by fasting and 
mortification, by covering himself in sackcloth 
and ashes, and by making a solemn confession of 
his sins, saying : " O Lord, the great and dreadful 
God, keeping the covenant and mercy to them 
that love him, and to them that keep his com- 
mandments. We have sinned, and have commit- 
ted iniquity, and have done wickedly, and have 
rebelled, even by departing from thy precepts and 
from thy judgments : Neither have we hearkened 
unto thy servants the prophets, which spake in thy 
name to our kings, our princes, and our fathers, 
and to all the people of the land. O Lord, righte- 
ousness belongeth unto thee, but unto us confusion 
of face." This hath been the practice of men 

n 2 



180 



who were meek and sincere, humble and holy ; 
this was the way wherein they sought for mercy 
at the throne of grace : yet now the case is so far 
altered, that even such as have denied their Lord 
are loth to submit to any penance for it, or even 
to implore his pardon. I beseech you therefore, 
brethren, that you would resort to the use of 
proper remedies, and hearken to sober counsel ; 
that you would join with me in lamentation, 
weeping and mourning, for your heinous sin. I 
beseech you, that I may beseech God for you; 
my prayers are first directed to you, that you 
would give me leave and liberty to offer them to 
God for you. Wherefore I again exhort, persuade, 
and intreat you, that you would submit to a full 
and proper penance for your sin, and give all 
becoming proofs of your hearty sorrow for it. 
Open, I beseech you, the eyes of your minds to 
a just apprehension of your sin and danger; 
neither on the one hand despairing of mercy, nor, 
on the other, claiming a right to pardon. As God 
is always kind, and hath the indulgence of a 
gracious Father, so on the other hand we should 
not forget that his Majesty is great as his mercy ; 
and if the Father is to be loved, the judge should 
be the object of our fear. 

9. Let us then mourn and weep in proportion 
to the greatness of our sin ; as the wound is large 
and deep, let our care of it proceed accordingly, 
and let the severity of our penitential labours not 



181 

fall short of the heinousness of our guilt. Can 
you believe of God, however compassionate, that 
he will immediately be reconciled to you, after 
you have expressly denied and betrayed your faith, 
after you have given an avowed and solemn pre- 
ference to your estate before him, and after you 
have polluted his temple by filling it with profane 
and forbidden meats ? Can you suppose that he 
will be so ready and so hasty to take pity on you, 
who have deliberately disdained all relation to 
him ? No ! You must ask more fervently, must 
continue a great while instant in prayer and sup- 
plication, must spend whole days in sorrow, and 
whole nights in tears, and every hour of your 
time in mourning and lamentation. " In return- 
ing and rest shall ye be saved ; in quietness and in 
confxdence shall be your strength : and ye would 
not." " As I live, saith the Lord God, I have 
no pleasure in the death of the wicked ; but that 
the wicked turn from his way and live." " Turn 
unto the Lord your God : for he is gracious and 
merciful, slow to anger, and of great kindness, 
and repenteth him of the evil." He therefore can 
grant you the forgiveness for which you are so 
earnest and so much in haste ; he can mitigate the 
sentence denounced upon your sin ; he can 
pardon his humble supplicants, his sincere peni- 
tents, such as bring forth fruits meet for repen- 
tance. And then the soldier of Christ will rally 
his broken forces, renew the contest with his 



182 



enemy, and will fight with the more ardour and 
courage, from a sorrowful and shameful remem- 
brance of his fall. He who shall thus endeavour 
to appease the anger of God ; he whom an hum- 
ble sense of his sin shall inspire with greater 
degrees of constancy and firmness for any future 
encounter, will derive upon himself the favourable 
assistance of God, and will contribute as much to 
the joy and triumph of the church, as before he 
had contributed to her dejection and grief ; nor 
will he then merely receive the pardon of his sin 3 
but even a crown of glory. 



TRACT VI. 



ON THE GRACE OF GOD. 

This tract was written soon after Cyprian's conversion ; 
and the person to whom it is inscribed is supposed to 
have been the companion of his studies, as well as 
of his baptism. The design of it was to expose the 
wickedness of heathen life and practice, to display the 
excellence of the religion he had so lately embraced, 
and to give the reasons which induced him to exchange 
the Pagan for the Christian worship. 

1. I am not now, my dear Donatus, bespeaking 
the affections of a giddy populace with the common 
arts of rhetoric, but delivering the plain truths of 
the gospel, and the mercies contained in it, which 
are best represented in their own native simplicity. 
Hear therefore from me what must be felt before 
it can be learnt ; what proceeds not in the usual 
way of gradual improvements, but is the surprising 
result of a more compendious grace. When I 
lay covered and overwhelmed with a midnight 
darkness, and floating uncertainly upon the waves 
of an unsanctified life, knowing not where to fix 
my feet, nor how to order my steps, and utterly 
a stranger to the light and truth ; under those 
dispositions of heart and mind which then pre- 
vailed with me, I thought very hardly of the gospel 
promises, and that the method of salvation pro- 



184 



pounded by it was utterly impracticable, since a 
man must be born again in order to obtain it, and 
must derive from the sacred laver of regeneration 
the principles of a new life, must put off the old 
man, and without any change of his bodily con- 
stitution, must be entirely renewed in the spirit 
of his mind. For how, thought I, is so great an 
alteration possible or practicable ? How shall I 
leave off on a sudden, and as it were upon the 
instant, radicated and habitual customs, which 
time and continuance have made natural to me, 
and which are closely rivet ted to the very frame 
of my being ? These, and such as these, were 
frequently my soliloquies ; for as I was deeply 
entangled and ensnared in the errors of my former 
life, which I judged it impossible for me ever to 
disengage from, so 1 really seconded the evil 
propensities of my nature by my choice, added 
strength to them by indulgence, and, despairing 
of any possible cure, I began to look upon them 
as parts of myself, and to favour them as my own 
proper attainments. But when the saving waters 
of baptism had purged away the filth of my former 
conversation ; when the light of heavenly truth 
shone in upon me, and found my soul purified and 
prepared thereby to receive and entertain it ; when 
the Spirit of God had descended upon me, and I 
was thence become a new creature, begotten again 
unto a lively hope ; presently all my doubts were 
settled, all obscurities became plain to me, the 



185 



light shone in after a wonderful manner upon my 
former darkness ; things appeared easy to me 
which before looked difficult and discouraging ; 
and what seemed heretofore impracticable, I was 
now convinced was very possible to be done. I 
distinguished thenceforwards that earthly principle 
which, being born of the flesh, exposed me to sin 
and death ; and that new principle which, being 
derived from the Spirit of God, had now entirely 
devoted and attached me to his service. You are 
my witness, and will recollect with me from what 
fatal mischiefs that death unto sin hath delivered 
us, as well as what blessings that living unto 
righteousness hath conferred upon us. You, I 
say, know all this without my recital of it : nor 
need I therefore make any invidious excursions 
into my own praises ; although it should rather 
indeed be interpreted as a mark of gratitude than 
of boasting, to mention those virtues which are 
the gifts of God, and expressly ascribed to the 
glories of his grace. So that now if we cease from 
sin, 'tis agreed to be owing entirely to his favour 
and to the faith which is in him, as before our 
faults were justly chargeable upon human depravity. 
From God alone, I say, we derive our powers ; in 
him we live, by him we are enabled to will and to 
do, and even in our present state are encouraged 
to look beyond it, and to forebode to ourselves a 
farther and future good. Only let a religious fear 
and caution preserve us blameless; that so the 



186 



merciful Lord, who hath thus favourably visited 
us with his holy illuminations, may take up his 
abode in our hearts, and delight to dwell with us 
as lovers of righteousness. For negligence and 
sloth will follow presumption and security ; and 
then our old enemy will be sure to take his advan- 
tage when we are off our guard. But if you keep 
close to the paths of innocence and virtue ; if you 
do not suffer your footsteps to be shaken in them ; 
if you rely upon God with all your heart, and with 
all your might, you will find your powers of action 
will be always equal to the progress of your faith. 
For it is not in heavenly as in earthly benefactions. 
You are stinted to no measure nor boundary in 
receiving the gifts of God ; the fountain of divine 
grace is ever flowing, is confined to no precise 
limitations, hath no determinate channel to restrain 
the waters of life ; let us but in earnest thirst for 
them, and open our mouths and hearts to receive 
them, and as much will flow in upon us as we are 
capable of holding, or as our faith enables us to 
receive. Inasmuch, therefore, as we have com- 
menced Christians, and have received the Spirit 
of God into our hearts, he exerts himself in us as 
he pleases, he worketh in us to will and to do of 
his good pleasure. Yet as we still drag along with 
us these mortal bodies, somewhat there still will 
cleave to us of the secular life and of its several 
imperfections. What accessions however are these 
of might and power which are hence derived upon 



187 



the inner man ! Not only to be cleared from the 
pollutions which are in the world through lust, 
and to be secure against all the incursions of our 
ghostly enemy, but even to increase in strength ; 
to be upon the offensive with him, to have at 
mercy, and under our subjection, the whole host 
and power of our grand adversary. 

2. And now, to give you a clearer manifestation 
of the truth, and to lay before you the most evident 
proofs and tokens of the divine grace, I will endea- 
vour to furnish you with proper lights for these 
purposes ; and undrawing the curtain will discover 
to you in the fullest manner the wickedness and 
darkness which have hitherto overspread the world. 
Suppose yourself therefore with me upon the top 
of some very exalted eminence, and thence looking 
down upon the appearances of things beneath you. 
Let our prospect take a compass over the whole 
horizon, and view with the indifference of a person 
unconcerned in them, the various motions and 
agitations of human life. You will then, I dare 
undertake for you, have a real compassion for the 
circumstances of mankind, and for the posture 
wherein this view will represent them. And when 
you reflect upon your own condition, your thoughts 
will rise in transports of gratitude and praise to 
God for having made your escape from the pollu- 
tions of the world. The main of what you will 
observe will be, the highways beset with robbers, 
the seas with pirates, encampments, marches, and 



188 



all the terrible forms of war and bloodshed ; when 
a single murder is committed, it shall be deemed, 
perhaps, a crime ; but that crime shall commence 
a virtue, when committed under the shelter of 
public authority ; so that punishment is not rated 
by the measures of guilt, but the more enormous 
the size of the wickedness is, so much the greater 
is its chance for impunity. If you turn your eyes 
towards cities and places of resort, you will find 
there a more melancholy spectacle than what could 
arise out of the most solitary desert. In the theatres 
you will observe what will furnish matter of grief 
and shame to you. Wickedness hence is not 
suffered to pass into oblivion, time is not permitted 
to wear out the traces, nor the impressions of it, 
but the horrors of the action are mitigated by 
applauded repetitions, it becomes thenceforwards 
exemplary, and the pleasure which the actors give 
you in representing to the life these various enor- 
mities of domestic wickedness, insensibly forms the 
mind to it, and thence is of fatal consequence to 
your virtue. What a waste is here committed 
upon the spectator's morals ? What encouragement 
given to the vilest practices ? What fuel hence is 
ministered to every impure affection, whilst each 
contracts its proper defilement from the several 
representations of the stage ? I beseech you, let 
me put the question whether any man is likely to 
be a spectator of such impure representations, and 
yet to preserve the purity of his thoughts and 



189 



purposes untainted ? But you will tell me, 
perhaps, that I have singled out the very worst 
and foulest instances of vice to declaim against, 
and to present a scene before you which should 
shock any person not quite abandoned to all sense 
of modesty and virtue, and therefore you may 
proceed to a different view, and consider those 
pursuits of life which pass in the opinion of the 
mistaken world for good and commendable ; even 
there I will discover to you what should raise your 
aversion. There is a secret mischief lurking under 
all these gaudy appearances of honour, all those 
ensigns of military and civil power, that abundance 
of wealth, and that showy magnificence of authority 
and grandeur which allure the hopes of the aspiring 
and the ambitious ; the outside in these cases is 
gay, 'tis true, and pleasing ; but the inside is tainted, 
and there are fatal mischiefs lodged in it. You 
say that at least authority and power, when joined 
to riches, must make any man secure, and must 
give him ease at heart; that the splendour of a 
court, and the guards which attend it, must needs 
be safe and satisfactory. Alas ! a man in these 
circumstances hath more reason to look well about 
him, and to be apprehensive of danger, than any 
other. He always fears more than he is feared. 
He pays dear for his power, whoever possesses it ; 
let him fence himself in with guards and securities 
never so numerous. The more dangerous his 
power is to his subjects, the more dangerous they 



190 



become to him ; before it can strike terror upon 
others, it strikes first upon his own breast. It gives 
him pleasure and pain together ; allures, exalts, and 
flatters him, only to deceive, to depress, and to 
destroy him. The interest of punishment seems 
to rise in proportion to the capital stock of power ; 
and the higher the advancement, so much greater 
is the torment which attends it. 

3. There is but one way therefore of founding 
our ease and security upon a solid and lasting 
bottom ; and that is, to get off with the soonest 
from the waves of this troublesome world, to retire 
thence, and to fix in the only sure haven of rest 
and peace, to raise our thoughts and apprehensions 
from earth to heaven, to interest ourselves in the 
covenant of grace, to ascend up to God in heart 
and affection, and to furnish our consciences with 
those materials of happiness and satisfaction, which 
the men of this world seek after in a world unable 
to furnish them. A man who thus hath raised 
himself above the world will easily expect, will 
importunately seek for nothing from it. O ! what 
a blessed state is this of repose and safety ! How 
firm is the security which is derived from Heaven! 
"What a felicity is it to be disengaged from the 
entanglements of this perplexing scene, to be 
purified from the dross of this sinful world, and 
to be fitted for immortality, notwithstanding all 
the former attempts of our grand adversary to 
seduce, and to corrupt us ! The reflections we 



191 



make upon what we have been, will oblige us to 
so much the greater degrees of love to God for 
what we are like to be. Nor is there need of cost, 
or courting, or of any laborious endeavour to 
attain the highest dignity and happiness of human 
nature. It is the free gift of God, and may easily 
be had. His heavenly grace flows into the soul ; 
as the sun of its own accord enlightens the dark 
corners of the earth ; as an over-flowing fountain 
offers its waters to any who will use them ; or as 
the refreshing dews descend unasked upon the 
thirsty meadows. When once the soul of man is 
brought to acknowledge and consider its heavenly 
extract, and hath learnt to raise itself above the 
world, it begins from that moment to enter upon 
the state for which it believes and apprehends 
itself created. You, for your part, my Donatus, 
are already listed a soldier of Christ ; your care 
therefore must only be, to keep within the rules 
of that profession which you are engaged in, and 
to practise the virtues which it requires from you. 
Be diligent in prayer, and in reading the word of 
God. At some times you must speak with God, 
at other times he must speak with you. Let him 
instruct you with his precepts, and form your 
mind by the guidance of his counsel ; the man 
who is thence enriched, no one can impoverish ; 
he who is filled with the fulness of God, cannot be 
empty. All the gaudiness and pomp of life will 
become insipid and jejune to you, when once you 



192 



are convinced that your soul should be adorned 
with the graces of the gospel, and that the house 
which God hath vouchsafed to make his temple, 
and in which his Holy Spirit is pleased to take up 
his abode, should be fitted up to receive him with 
a concern proportioned to the dignity of the guest 
expected. Let innocence and righteousness adorn 
this habitation for him. These are ornaments 
which no length of time will decay. The embel- 
lishments of human art will be soiled and withered 
with age ; nor can*any man depend upon the con- 
tinuance of things which are in their own nature 
so obnoxious to change. But the beauty, the 
ornament, the splendor of the house, whereof I 
have been speaking, will abide, till it shall be 
renewed with greater advantage, and be clothed 
with a more durable and better covering. 



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